The airline's last scheduled flights to Toronto will be on March 30. Its scheduled flights to all other destinations, including Las Vegas, Honolulu and Maui, will end on April 9.

The airline, which was launched as MY Airways in 2002, will provide full refunds to anyone already booked to travel to and from Toronto after March 30 or any other destination after April 9. The airline will also refund the value of the return portion of tickets for anyone booked to return on Harmony after these dates.

“I want to be very clear, this is not a bankruptcy,” Harmony owner David Ho said in a written statement released Tuesday morning. “This is not a creditor protection arrangement and this is not a company dissolution. This is the restructuring of a going concern company that will continue to treat its customers, suppliers and employees fairly.”

Ho blamed increasing operating costs, overcapacity in the market and aggressive price competition from larger carriers prompted the move.

Harmony advisor Peter Buecking – who joined the airline just three weeks ago – echoed Ho’s statements at a Tuesday press conference announcing the shutdown. Neither Ho nor interim president Kirk Henderson, who replaced previous CEO Gary Collins in December, attended the news conference.

“It was a case of a full-service airline in a marketplace where it's difficult to price at a premium when you don't have the scale,” Buecking said. “It's possible to provide full service but you really need a big network, in my view.”

Harmony had attempted to expand into the lucrative Chinese market and introduce scheduled flights to Beijing and Shanghai. Those plans failed to materialize, however, after the Chinese government refused to grant Canada the approved-destination status that were needed to ease travel restrictions between the two countries.

Buecking told reporters that most of the airline’s 350 non-unionized employees will be given layoff notices, but will receive generous severance packages and recommendation letters.