We’ve been spotting flights for about $100 roundtrip from almost every major Canadian city for a while now, thanks to the ultra low-cost carriers (ULCC) that have finally arrived in Canada (later than anywhere else in the world, or almost). But of course, the routes are limited… and now there are a bunch of new ones.
First, Lynx Air will finally serve Montreal and Canada’s 2nd-most populous province, with 2 new routes. And most importantly, Flair Airlines has announced a bunch of new routes all over the country.
Here are the details of the Lynx and Flair news.
Overview of the Lynx news
Here’s what you need to know about Lynx:
- New ULCC carrier in Montreal (YUL)
- Lynx Air, based in Calgary
- I was on their inaugural flight in 2022 to show you how it is
- 2 new routes
- St. John’s, Newfoundland (YYT)
- Calgary, Alberta (YYC)
- Price from $107 roundtrip
- Promo code “MONTREAL” for this sale
- So just available on the Lynx website
- No turnkey date combos, as we usually provide
- Lots of dates available at this price starting in June
- Even during the peak summer season!
- Like any deal, it won’t last long, of course
Lynx operates brand-new ultra-modern aircraft by the way, as is often the case with ULCCs even though their flights are as low as $49 one-way.
By the way, the same Montreal-St. John’s flight used to cost $500 roundtrip; now it’s $111. Same as for Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, and Halifax since Flair arrived in Montreal.
So if you haven’t figured it out yet, it’s high time you understood this: the only thing that determines the price of airfare is competition. That’s it. Not the distance, not the number of flights, not the cost of operating a route, not anything else.
We’re going to have a lot more content on the basics of how to find cheap flights since it’s frankly terrible how much some travelers pay for their flights (it makes us so sad honestly). You can read a preview in our free ebook with 100+ travel pro tips in the meantime.
Overview of the Flair news
Here’s what you need to know about Flair:
- Now Canada’s 3rd-biggest airline
- After Air Canada and WestJet
- Announced a bunch of new services
- Some completely new routes
- More frequencies on existing routes
- This is for their winter schedule
- So all new international routes
- New routes from 4 airports
- From Ottawa (YOW)
- From Toronto (YYZ)
- From Kitchener-Waterloo (YKF)
- From Calgary (YYC)
- They had also announced 13 new Summer 2023 routes
- 15 Canadian airports got new routes
- Sale with 20% off the base fare to celebrate
- Promo code “save20” for this sale
- So just available on the Flair website
- No turnkey date combos, as we usually provide
Details of these 2 announcements
Here are more details about the Lynx and Flair news.
Basics of ultra low-cost carriers
I want to remind you that ultra low-cost carriers are not a scam: the scam is paying as much as Canadians have been paying for so long precisely because there was no competition offered by ULCC.
There are obviously details to understand; it’s an entirely different business model than most people are familiar with. Especially if they don’t often travel elsewhere (where ULCCs have been around for a long time) or if they make the mistake of always buying their plane tickets as a single ticket when they travel elsewhere, as do so many people who unfortunately don’t know about the self-transfer tip and pay way too much for all their tickets to Europe for example!
I am humbly among the most knowledgeable about ULCCs in the world after 80+ ULCC flights, on 15+ different ULCCs, in 20+ different countries, on 4 continents, for over 10 years. So I wrote this ultimate guide to ultra low-cost carriers for all the information you’d want to know with facts, not with the so common and false myths from people who don’t know what they’re talking about (there are so many of those on the subject of travel).
Part 2 of the guide with the list of all the ULCC routes from every Canadian city is coming soon too!
I also attended the Flair press conference yesterday and they provided some information that might interest you, don’t miss that soon too.
Basics of ULCC prices
Since 2018, we’ve been spotting cheap roundtrip flights on Canadian ULCCs at very low prices.
Here are some examples from Montreal just today, because all the deals are always available on our site every day!
These prices are now available from almost every major Canadian city, thanks to 3 ULCCs in Canada:
- Flair
- Swoop
- Lynx
And they keep growing, as ULCCs have been doing literally everywhere in the world for decades in case you didn’t know.
New Flair routes
I’ll start with the new Flair routes for next winter, as they cover more of the country.
First, these are the new Winter 2023 routes just announced yesterday:
- From Ottawa (YOW) to Las Vegas, Nevada (LAS)
- Starting October 13th
- 2 times per week
- From Toronto (YYZ) to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico (PVR)
- Starting October 29th
- 4 times per week
- From Kitchener-Waterloo (YKF) to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico (PVR)
- Starting October 29th
- 4 times per week
- From Calgary (YYC) to Las Vegas, Nevada (LAS)
- Starting October 30th
- 7 times per week
- From Calgary (YYC) to Phoenix, Arizona (PHX)
- Starting October 30th
- 4 times per week
It’s worth mentioning that Flair had also announced new destinations recently and we hadn’t covered them yet. We have been obviously spotting the cheap dates on our deals page though, as for all destinations!
Again, we’ll have the full list of ULCC routes mapped for you soon, but here are the 13 new Flair routes for Summer 2023, all domestic routes within Canada:
- Between Saskatoon (YXE) and Calgary (YYC)
- Starting May 9th
- 7 times per week
- Between Abbotsford (YXX) and Kitchener-Waterloo (YKF)
- Starting May 9th
- 3 times per week
- Between Windsor (YQG) and Vancouver (YVR)
- Starting June 10th
- 2 times per week
- Between Victoria (YYJ) and Winnipeg (YWG)
- Starting June 9th
- 2 times per week
- Between Kelowna (YLW) and Toronto (YYZ)
- Starting July 9th
- 2 times per week
- Between Kelowna (YLW) and Winnipeg (YWG)
- Starting July 10th
- 2 times per week
- Between Québec City (YQB) and Halifax (YHZ)
- Starting June 8th
- 3 times per week
- Between Québec City (YQB) and Edmonton (YEG)
- Starting July 7th
- 2 times per week
- Between London (YXU) and Calgary (YYC)
- Starting June 2nd
- 3 times per week
- Between London (YXU) and Vancouver (YVR)
- Starting June 7th
- 3 times per week
- Between London (YXU) and Winnipeg (YWG)
- Starting June 11th
- 2 times per week
- Between London (YXU) and Halifax (YHZ)
- Starting June 8th
- 3 times per week
- Between Kamloops (YKA) and Edmonton (YEG)
- Starting June 15th
- 3 times per week
For this new route launch, Flair is offering 20% off the base fare only. You must enter the promo code “save20” on the Flair website.
So because of this promo code, I can’t provide you with the turnkey date combinations you usually get on our website, unfortunately!
(As we do every day for dozens of deals on our deals page!)
New Lynx routes
Lynx is coming to Canada’s 2nd-most populous province! I spoke with their CEO in Toronto last year, and she told me that Québec was part of their plans quite soon!
As of June 8, Lynx will serve St. John’s from Montréal 3 times a week. It’s the most interesting route of course, because it’s the first ULCC route between Montréal and Newfoundland.
There is so much beautiful scenery in Newfoundland, and one of the most unique cultures in Canada.
Starting June 5th, Lynx will also serve Calgary from Montréal 3 times a week. Yes, Flair already operates this route. This means that low fares will undoubtedly be very easy to find to go West from Montréal, or vice-versa! Especially since that route will now be served by 5 (!!!!) airlines in total, unheard of in a market as oligopolistic as Canada: Lynx, Flair, Air Canada, WestJet, and Air Transat. Porter, the smaller premium airline, wants to eventually offer flights to Calgary too, from the new secondary airport, Montréal/Saint-Hubert airport (YHU), as we told you last week.
Calgary is a city I enjoyed, but I know most people like the nearby National Parks in the Rocky Mountains even more!
By the way, I’ll be a speaker at an event about travel rewards and credit cards in Calgary on Saturday, March 25th, if you live nearby or if you’re interested in having an excuse to go there (you can save 15% on tickets to the event with the “Flytrippers” promo code). Otherwise, on Wednesday, March 15th, we’re doing our monthly travel rewards video and Q&A if you want to learn for free without having to travel!
For the Lynx launch, you must enter the promo code “MONTREAL” on the Lynx website to get special prices, 50% off the base fare.
So again, because of this promo code, I can’t provide you with the turnkey date combinations you usually get on our website, unfortunately!
(As we do every day for dozens of deals on our deals page!)
But the Lynx site is well designed and allows you to see a calendar view of the prices, as is almost always the case.
Just click on “Best Fare Calendar” of course!
And there you have it; you can easily see the best prices (like all short-distance flights, the roundtrip prices are just the total of the one-way prices).
As you can see, for the launch, the prices are pretty easy to find at the moment, but the best dates are already getting snatched up and going up in price!
Of course, always compare to the prices of other airlines. That’s why you should never do your research on the airlines’ websites but rather on an aggregator like Skyscanner, which will tell you the price for all the airlines and also for all the booking websites.
(On the other hand, always book on the airlines’ websites if it’s the same price! In case you are one of those who mix all this up, it’s not complicated: SEARCHING and BOOKING are 2 very different things!)
Comparing is always essential, but especially if you want optional extras, to compare apples to apples. Those who don’t pay a penny more (who travel ultra light and don’t need extras) love ULCCs of course, but ULCCs are often the cheapest even if you are one of those who pay for extras.
Without optional extras, it’s $111 roundtrip for Montréal-St. John’s (taxes represent 95% of that price, which is very reasonable of course; please keep asking governments to tax more and more)!
And it’s $107 roundtrip for Montréal-Calgary (taxes are “just” 89% of that total).
The most basic thing about flight deals
Of course, like all good deals, the best dates go fast. That’s pretty much the most basic thing about airfare deals.
So hurry up and book if you’re interested in any of these deals, like any flight deal.
It’s why if you’ve been following our tips, you’ve been preparing ahead of time, and you started to plan ahead by simply asking yourself which destinations you might be interested in if a flight deal comes up. Because when a deal comes up, it doesn’t last long, and it’s not time to start wondering if you want to go there, especially when that thought process can (and should) easily be done in advance.
When a deal comes out, it’s time to find dates and book; that’s it. You must have already decided on the list of destinations you are interested in; it’s really that simple.
This is good to know to be ready for the next deals, like Australia at $957 roundtrip (instead of $2200) that we spotted last week, for example!
Finally, the other basic thing is to always consider the whole equation (as you should always do for any decision). In this case, the total cost of a trip — not just the plane ticket cost!
Keep in mind that Canada is obviously one of the worst places in the world to travel to in terms of costs. It’s pretty terrible here. So maybe it’s better to pay $500 more for a ticket that takes you to Central America for example, or another country among the cheapest to travel to, where everything will cost you half the price once you’re there.
Heck, it’s even worth paying $1000 more to go to Southeast Asia if you’re traveling for at least 2 weeks, because you’ll make up for the higher airfare by saving enormously on everything else every single day!
That’s why when we share the frequent deals to Hawaii we spot in the $300s to $500s roundtrip from all across Canada, we always remind you of that warning; it’s literally one of the most expensive places on the planet. You’re way better off paying more for flights to go to a place where everything is half the price (or less) of course!
All in all, your trip will cost less, if that’s something you want (as almost all travelers say they want).
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Summary
Flair is adding more new international routes next winter. And Lynx is finally offering flights to Montreal this summer! More and more ULCCs mean lower prices for all Canadian travelers, even those who don’t fly on ULCCs because competition lowers prices on all airlines. Don’t miss our list of all ULCC routes in Canada very soon.
What would you like to know about new ULCC routes? Tell us in the comments below.
See the deals we spot: Cheap flights
Explore awesome destinations: Travel inspiration
Learn pro tricks: Travel tips
Discover free travel: Travel rewards
Featured image: Newfoundland (photo credit: Erik Mclean)
