A new player in the airline space – Canada Jetlines – launches today with $99 flights between Calgary and Toronto.
The company, located in Ontario, will make its inaugural fight today and is scheduled to fly from Toronto’s Pearson Airport to the Calgary International Airport twice a week.
Canada Jetlines bills itself as an “all-Canadian, value-focused leisure carrier.”
While Toronto-Calgary is its only scheduled route right now, the company’s chief commercial offer, Duncan Bureau, said the airline plans to service the leisure market both domestically and transborder with flights to the Caribbean and the Americas.
The airline currently has one Airbus A320 and a second to join in December, with plans to expand the fleet to 15 Airbus A320s by 2025 at a rate of five aircraft per year, said Bureau.
Canada Jetlines joins Edmonton-based Flair Airlines and Calgary-based Lynx as the low-fare flight companies that have sprung up since the pandemic.
Bureau added he is critical of the business model being used by so-called low-cost carriers like Flair and Lynx.
“If you’re charging fares at rates that are lower than the cost of parking your car at the airport, the economics just don’t work and it’s not sustainable,” Bureau said.
Canada Jetlines plans to offer a premium experience to customers that include departure times that fit the preference of the consumer over the pilot and 174 seats in lieu of the standard 180 to provide increased comfort, said Bureau.
On its website, Canada Jetlines is advertising introductory fares starting at $99 for one-way trips between Calgary and Toronto for a limited time.
To compare, Flair offers one-way trips from Calgary to Toronto for $49, the same route starts at $99 on Lynx and you can fly from Edmonton to Toronto for $59 with Swoop, according to the companies websites.
