A New Airline Has Flights to Europe for as Little as $109
Play is finally expanding its service to the US, and it's kicking it off with a flight sale.
Low-cost airlines are a give-and-take proposition for travelers. You know it shouldn't cost less to fly to Europe than it does to drive to the next state over. Still, if you're the kind of traveler that is willing to make it work -- small seats, no amenities unless you pay, limited baggage, etc. -- a budget airline can make travel a whole lot easier. (At least, financially.)
Play, a relatively new low-cost airline that operates flights between Iceland and Europe, has announced that it will begin service between the US and Europe. The first flights are taking off from Boston and Baltimore in spring 2022. From those hubs, you can hit 22 European destinations with tickets as low as $109 one-way, the airline says in its announcement.
"Transportation costs and associated fees represent 54% of spending on trips to international destinations for American passengers," the company says. "Play offers a streamlined, no-frills service without costly features such as magazines, Wi-Fi, and entertainment." So, you're getting what you pay for. Your ticket includes a personal item, but no in-flight meal, carry-on, checked luggage, or other amenity. It could be a deal if you're willing to travel light and spend money once you're on the ground. But if you need some of those amenities, your ticket price could rise in a hurry.
The sale offers tickets as low as $109, but that's just for a little while. That's the price when you buy from December 16 through December 24. There are 11 destinations available in the sale. Those include Berlin Brandenburg (BER), Brussels (BRU), Copenhagen (CPH), Dublin (DUB), Göteborg Landvetter (GOT), Keflavik (KEF), London Stansted (STN), Paris-Charles de Gaulle (CDG), Stavanger (SVG), Stuttgart (STR), and Trondheim (TRD). Those sale fares are exclusively for flights that takeoff from May to June of 2022 or August to October of 2022.
If you're thinking about jumping into the sale for the first trans-Atlantic flights from Play, you can expect to travel in the spring. Baltimore flights begin on April 20, 2022. Flights out of Boston will start on May 11, 2022.
UPDATE:
When the sale launched on December 16, the Play site crashed due to interest in the sale. It is back up currently. "Within hours of the ticket sales launching in the United States, our web traffic took off," Birgir Jónsson, CEO of Play, said in a statement provided to Thrillist. "Play sees international travel as a big opportunity in 2022, and it’s clear that travelers are ready to start planning trips for the spring. Our web 'traffic control' struggled at first to handle the influx of travelers viewing our low-cost flights from Boston and Baltimore, but the Play team was quickly able to restore service."