Judy Vos is one lucky lady.
Not only was she jetting off on Wednesday's inaugural non-stop Porter Airlines flight from Kelowna to Ottawa to visit her daughter and grandson, but she also won the raffle prize of two future return flights anywhere Porter flies.
"I'll definitely use the prize flights to go back to Ottawa to see my daughter and grandson soon," said Vos.
"I've been waiting for a direct flight to Ottawa for a long time. I'm happy it's finally here and I'm happy to have won the flights today, too."
Kelowna International Airport threw a party Wednesday for the arrival of Porter's first ever flight from the nation's capital at 11:45 am.
People who deplaned at Gate 8 were greeted with applause, balloons and welcomes from Kelowna Mayor Tom Dyas, Kelowna airport CEO Sam Samaddar and Porter vice-president of network planning Andrew Pierce.
The plane turned around to depart Kelowna at 12:40 pm and land in Ottawa four hours and 20 minutes later at 8 pm local time.
Porter will keep up that schedule five and six times a week until Oct. 31.
"We're starting Kelowna-Ottawa as a seasonal service," explained Porter vice-president of network planning Andrew Pierce.
"But, you never know, it might become year-round. Kelowna-Ottawa is an underserviced route."
Flair Airlines tried season flights between Kelowna and Ottawa in the summers of 2021 and 2022, but gave up on them.
Porter is more bullish on the route.
Porter has been flying daily between Kelowna and Toronto year-round with great success for a year.
It found year-round demand from tourists, visiting friends and family, and people flying here in the winter to ski.
Pierce speculates that the service between Kelowna and Ottawa would have the same success.
There's also the possibility that Porter, or its code-share partner Air Transat, might start flying from Kelowna to a winter sun destination sometime in the future.
A quick look online found one-way flights between Kelowna and Ottawa for $264 for basic, which includes the seat for you and one personal item that fits under the seat in front of you.
On both the Kelowna-Ottawa and Kelowna-Toronto routes, Porter is flying new, 132-seat Embraer E195-E2 jet.
Porter touts 'no middle seats' in the narrow-body plane because it has a configuration of two seats either side of the central aisle.
It also touts that snacks, soft drinks, beer and wine are always free on every flight.
The first passenger to step off the inaugural Ottawa-Kelowna flight didn't want to give her name because she's didn't want to reveal the employer who is transferring her from Ottawa to Kelowna.
She's doing some apartment hunting in Kelowna this weekend before moving here full-time next month.
Erin Kelly and Dustin Etheridge were waiting to get on the plane to head to Ottawa.
"We did know this was the first one," said Kelly.
"We're from Ottawa and we're big Porter fans, so and searched and we're happy the best way to get home is direct on Porter. Although we came here in a roundabout way. We flew Air Canada from Ottawa to Calgary, where a friend picked us up and we toured the Rockies for a few days before coming to Kelowna to visit friends.
Toronto-based Porter started small flying out of downtown Toronto's Billy Bishop Airport with short-haul flights on 76-seat Q400 turbo-prop planes to cities in Ontario, Quebec and the US northeast.
It's quickly expanded with the Embraer jet to fly across Canada, the US and into Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean and also fly in and out of Toronto's Pearson International Airport.
With Porter's new service, Ottawa becomes the 22nd non-stop destination accessible from Kelowna and will help the local airport keep its status as the 9th busiest in the country.
In all, Kelowna airport has 70 arriving and departing flights daily with 9 airlines and serves a total of 2.3 million passengers a year.
The non-stop destinations are Vancouver, Victoria, Comox, Nanaimo, Seattle, Cranbrook, Prince George, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto and Montreal, with summer seasonals to Regina, Saskatoon, Winnipeg and Ottawa and winter seasonals to Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Cancun, Puerto Vallarta, Los Cabos and Mazatlan.
