US Budget airline

[LondonJ]

I am heading to the US in June and need to fly from Los Angeles to Calgary (or Vancouver) and then onwards to New York. I have heard that there are some US budget airlines on their way. Does anyone know anything about them e.g. what they're called or when they're starting?

[OFBSLF]

There are several budget airlines currently operating in the US. The best known are probably Southwest, JetBlue, and AirTran. Delta recently started up service of a budget subsidiary called Song. United is going to be starting a budget subsidiary called Ted :rolleyes:

Virgin is looking to start a US budget airline as well.

I have no idea whether any of these airlines serve Calgary (but I doubt it).

[Boss Raptor]

Dont bother with Airtran...they hold my 'world's worst airline' award...4 flights transiting ATL...3 flights they lost my baggage...service is awful, aircraft are frankly junk and interiors literally falling apart, unservicable toilets and all sorts (didnt go on the new B717's), service in the air and on the ground is awful...never again :\

[Globaliser]

Having had a quick look at this for you, there's not a lot of low fare airline service on the routes that you're looking at.

Currently there are flights between LAX and both YVR and YYC by Air Canada and Alaska. (Each of them carries a number of other airlines' codes, including MX, NW, NZ, QF and UA - don't be confused by that, as those airlines don't actually fly the route.)

To YVR there is also HMY Airways (http://www.hmyairways.com), which appears to be a low fare airline but whose website intriguingly allows booking only ex-Canada, although you can do both one ways and returns. You might have to ask them whether you can start a trip from LAX.

To get from YVR to NYC airports there are flights by AC, CO and UA. There don't seem to be any non-stops from YYC to NYC, so you would have to connect somewhere.

If you have to connect somewhere on any of these journeys, it is possible that you could connect between low fare airline flights (online or interline), but you would have to do a lot of searching of potential connection points and the airlines which service those points to find out. Even if it were technically possible, it may be that building the fare out of two separate trips would mean that it's cheaper to fly on a major anyway. (And - always - it may be cheaper to fly on a major; low fare airlines are not necessarily cheaper.)

Virgin US (whatever they may eventually be called) is the only low fare airline of any size that I know has plans to start up, but I would die of astonishment if they were in the air by June.

Hint: If you want to find out which airlines serve a particular route, one way of doing this is to go to the website of one of the airports and look at their flight arrivals/departure information.

[OFBSLF]

Virgin US (whatever they may eventually be called) is the only low fare airline of any size that I know has plans to start up, but I would die of astonishment if they were in the air by June.I agree. I think they are slated to start up in "mid to late 2004", but they still haven't selected a headquarters city yet, let alone purchased real estate, built-out office space, etc. It wouldn't surprise me if it slipped until 2005.

[christep]

The best airline between YVR and JFK is without a shadow of doubt CX. Only once perday, but I believe you can get deals on the price.