Start-Ups Start-Up airline Canada Jetlines announces base in Halifax

With the announcement being made, Jetlines now plans with three operational bases. While Halifax will be the Eastern base, Hamilton will be the Southern and Abbotsford the Western base. The company aims to become the leading ultra low-cost carrier in Canada.

Stan Gadek, CEO of Jetlines said: “We are pleased to announce the selection of Halifax Stanfield International Airport as our eastern operations base. Halifax is the leading airport of the Atlantic provinces and we look forward to lowering the cost of air travel to and from Atlantic Canada with our Ultra-Low Fares.”

Halifax Stanfield International Airport is the 8th busiest in Canada and handled over 3,9 Million passengers in 2016. Regarding Jetlines´ decision, Chief Commercial Officer Bert van der Stege stated: “We’re delighted that Canada Jetlines has selected Halifax Stanfield as one of their first airports in the country. Experience has shown that the model of low cost and low fare travel stimulates demand and we look forward to offering passengers more travel options between Atlantic Canada, Hamilton, ON and Abbotsford, BC.”

Jetlines, which is headquartered in Vancouver, will operate four Boeing 737-800 aircraft in an all-economy 189-seat configuration. Begin of tickets sale is scheduled for Spring 2018.

Most likely, the first routes will be flown in Summer 2018. The company initially plans to connect Hamilton with Calgary, Winnipeg, Edmonton and its other bases Halifax and Abbotsford. Over the next seasons, Jetlines is set to add more and more destinations to its portfolio, including flights to the U.S. and Mexico by 2019.

Jetlines enters competition with WestJet on the Canadian low-cost market, while WestJet recently announced its own ultra low-cost airline Swoop.