$0 Base Fare Tickets: Halifax’s New Ultra Low-Cost Carrier’s Sale Was Incredible!

Last week, there was an incredible deal that should give Halifax travelers who love cheap flights a lot of hope. A Canadian airline offered flights for free… well, they charged $0 for the one-way tickets, but the government and the airport still had to collect $41 of taxes and fees (one-way).

That’s not free… but $41 is still pretty affordable for a one-way flight (it’s literally the cheapest it can be, in Halifax at least). That Ultra Low-Cost Carrier (ULCC) had also offered $0 base fare tickets when announcing their launch last year… and that meant there were $8 flights in BC.

Before we give you more details, just know that if you missed it —and more importantly if don’t want to miss the next great deal— you really need to follow Flytrippers Halifax on Facebook or subscribe to our free deals newsletter or check out our deals page every day: spotting cheap flights is Flytrippers‘ specialty.

Sure, we share great travel tips, news and inspiration here on the blog… but our main focus is (and will always be) curating the best limited-time flight deals from Halifax every day, often over 50% off the regular price. And we expect more and more deals as Ultra Low-Cost Carriers grow in Canada, especially in Halifax.

Since ULCCs are coming very soon, we thought you’d be interested in learning more. So here are the details.

Ultra Low-Cost Carriers in Halifax

To promote their upcoming launch in Halifax, Ultra Low-Cost Carrier Swoop offered that great 0$ base fare sale (which is now over unfortunately). We’ll tell you more about the actual deal, but let’s start with an overview of Ultra Low-Cost Carriers in Halifax.

Why ULCCs Are So Great

Even though it probably won’t ever be that cheap again, we still expect many one-ways to regularly be on sale for under $100. We’ll obviously be posting all these on our deals page, but know that almost all our great deals are on regular airlines. ULCC flights have a special orange ULCC tag in the corner of the deal cover image.

Flights under $200 roundtrip are almost all thanks to Ultra Low-Cost Carriers, who are the greatest thing to happen to the aviation industry in, well, ever.

If you follow our blog regularly, you know that we’re really excited about the arrival of ULCCs in Canada. The absence of such airlines is one of the main reasons why airfares are so expensive in Canada, compared to Europe (where I’ve flown for $10), Asia (where I’ve flown for $15), the US (where I’ve flown for $20) and even more and more developing countries, like Peru (where I’ve flown for $20).

I won’t get into all the details because we already covered Swoop’s launch in Canada and have a few interesting articles about ULCCs: How Ultra Low-Cost Carriers Work and The Most Common Myths About ULCCs.

I’ve flown 70+ flights on ULCCs overall and we can definitely tell you that the experience is great. To see for yourself, you can read my detailed review of WOW air, a transatlantic ULCC… and look for much more ULCC reviews and content on this blog in the coming weeks.

For Cheap Flight Enthusiasts In Halifax

Luckily for Halifax travelers, you have not one but in fact two Ultra Low-Cost Carriers coming to town. BC-based ULCC Flair Airlines also announced plans to serve Halifax starting in mid-June (for the summer), so both of these new players are guaranteed to lower airfares for Nova Scotians. Keep reading for the destinations.

Jetlines, another Canadian ULCC, plans to serve Halifax too, but they haven’t taken off yet (and haven’t convinced us that they ever will, even though we’d sure love to have another option).

And that’s in addition to the new European destinations announced by WestJet from Halifax. Even though WestJet isn’t a ULCC, more competition and more options will definitely lower prices for transatlantic flights.

ULCC Destinations From Halifax (YHZ)

Swoop: Hamilton (YHM)
Flair Airlines: Toronto (YYZ)

The best way to find the lowest price if you are looking for specific dates and destinations is always to use our flight search tool that will compare all airlines for you (no airline can be the cheapest 100% of the time, you should always compare). And if you’re flexible, follow these instructions to find the cheapest dates for your specific destination or even the cheapest destinations for your specific dates.

Again, to see Halifax flight deals from all airlines, you can of course check out our deals page regularly. And make sure you subscribe to our newsletter (like 28,000+ other Canadians have already done) to get all the great flight deals (and our many travel tips) directly into your inbox, specially curated for Haligonians.

The $0 Deal

If you’re curious to know more about the deal, it applied to one-way flights to Hamilton (in the Greater Toronto Area) and the final price was only $41. All flight deals are for limited dates and expire quickly, but it was especially true for this one, given how good a deal it was.

A few return flights were priced at $99, which gave a roundtrip cost of only $140 to go to Hamilton, but $129 was far more common for the return (for a grand total of $170 roundtrip).

Yes, this is very cheap for Canada, although as mentioned earlier, in literally any other developed country this would be considered expensive. You’ll find this story on our blog soon, but back in January we flew from Montreal to Europe, then took 8 flights in Europe, then flew back to Montreal… all for $450 total. And I just took half a dozen flights in Asia this past month for under $40 each… and just this week we spotted more of the very frequent US flight deals for just $18…

But not in Canada, although that’s not Swoop or any other airline’s fault, as they simply could not price that one-way any lower. As you saw in the image above, Swoop wasn’t charging a dime for these flights, the base fare was $0 and the airfare cost was 100% taxes and fees. So the total price would obviously be much cheaper if Canada didn’t have some of the highest taxes and fees on airfare among all developed countries, but that’s a whole other topic.

Hopefully, the arrival of these Ultra Low-Cost Carriers will mean more and more cheap flights from Halifax to other Canadian destinations, even if they do actually charge at least a few dollars for the airfare.

Bottom Line

This was great deal for Halifax travelers. Expect more of these as ULCCs gain ground in Nova Scotia and across Canada and subscribe to our channels to make sure you can take advantage of the next great flight deal from Halifax.

What do you think of ULCCs coming to Halifax? Tell us in the comments below!

Don’t want to miss another great tip or flight deal? Join the other 28,000 Canadians who’ve already subscribed to our newsletter!

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You’ll probably enjoy this article:
How to Find Cheap Flights to Any City in Europe

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