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Flying South Just Got Easier

The Halifax International Airport’s new U.S. pre-clearance service is making flying south of the border a whole lot easier. In December, American Eagle began offering direct flights from Halifax to New York City’s LaGuardia Airport. The airport, close to downtown Manhattan, doesn’t have a customs facility and was previously inaccessible to this market.

American Eagle spokesperson Dave Jackson, says, “(The pre-clearance) allowed us to launch the service and it also benefits people who are going on our flights to JFK International Airport. We’re excited to offer Nova Scotians this new service. It’s going to be very successful and help bring tourism to your part of the world too.”American Eagle expects to draw more visitors to New York City with their LaGuardia flights, but travellers will also be able to take advantage of affordable transcontinental connections.

“What you get out of LaGuardia,” says Jackson, “is a number of cities up and down the east coast and out in the mid-west that we don’t fly out of JFK, like Tampa, Florida, Charlotte, North Carolina, Madison, Wisconsin, Des Moines, Iowa, Detroit, Michigan, Columbus, Ohio, and Washington, D.C. You still have the benefit of the flights to JFK that connect you to international flights to Tokyo and Paris as well as transcontinental flights to Los Angeles and San Francisco.”

American Airlines Vacations have a number of car and hotel packages to cities around the world and the U.S., including New York City, through www.aa.com which will be worth checking out.American Eagle lays claim to being the largest regional airline in the United States, with more than 1,800 daily flights to 140 plus cities in the U.S., Canada, the Bahamas, Mexico and the Caribbean. The daily southbound flight departs Halifax in the afternoon.

Delta Connection flies to Boston from Halifax, Continental Airlines to Newark, and United Airlines to Washington, D.C. All these airlines offer great vacation packages from these cities and last-minute deals.

These airlines also all have direct connections to Florida, a destination that is difficult to reach from Nova Scotia as flights are booked quickly. Go to www.hiaa.ca (Halifax airport site) for info.

Note that Canadians do require a passport to enter the U.S. as of January 23, 2007.