This Opinion article is part of a Narcity Media series. The views expressed are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Narcity Media.
If you're looking for cheap flights to Europe this summer, Canada just got a new budget airline offering low-cost airfare to tons of European cities.
Play Airlines had its inaugural flight on June 22 from Toronto to Iceland, and Narcity was invited to come along for the ride.
Play operates with a "no frills" approach to flying, meaning that instead of having the cost of things like food and entertainment worked into the price of your ticket, travelers can pay for what they want and allocate more money towards their trip.
To put things in perspective, if you were to fly from Toronto to Iceland on July 22-29 with Play Airlines, it would cost you about $858, while the same trip would cost you upwards of $1,979 with Air Canada.
During the roughly 6-hour flight from Hamilton International Airport to Reykjavik, Iceland, I got to see what flying with Play is really like. If you're thinking of booking a trip with the airline this year, here's what you can expect.
Booking experience
Selecting a destination on Play Airlines' website.
Since we were invited by Play Airlines for this flight, we didn't book flights ourselves. However, the booking process is pretty straightforward.
On the airline's website, simply select your destination from YHM in Toronto. There are 34 cities in Europe that Canadians can fly to from the airport.
Once you've put in where you want to go, you'll be able to choose your dates of travel, and see the cheapest times to fly.
Then select the type of fare you want. Play Basic is the airline's cheapest fare, coming with the least "frills" — the price includes the fare and taxes and a personal item for you to bring on board.
If you want to have things like priority boarding, a carry-on bag, and a checked bag included, you can upgrade to Play Value, which costs a little more, or Play Flex, the highest-priced fare, which comes with additional weight allowance for your checked luggage and flight flexibility.
Once you've selected your fare type, you'll need to input some personal info, including your name and date of birth.
From there, you can select the baggage you want to take on your flight. According to the airline, the baggage allowance is always the cheapest during the original booking, so if you've selected the basic fare and want to include a carry-on or checked bag, now's the time to add it.
The price for luggage will vary based on where you're heading. At this step, you can also purchase cancellation protection for your flights.
Next, you'll choose your seats. Seat pricing depends on where you want to sit in the plane — for instance, seats in the first two rows have up to 10 inches more legroom, and you can book these for $76.50 each. The cheapest seats can be found in the last row of the plane cabin, costing as low as $26.35.
Exit-row seats also offer more legroom and can be purchased for $63 each. You also have the option of skipping seat selection.
The final step is simply to review your flights and pay. Play accepts credit cards and debit cards with 16-digit numbers and CSC/CVC codes, and you can also get a discount on group bookings.
As Play notes, you'll have to make a MyPlay account to book flights, but this is free and easy to do.
Check-in & boarding: 4.5/5
Check in at Hamilton Airport. Right: Katherine's Play boarding pass and passport.
Checking in to our Play Airlines flight was pretty easy. We checked in at Hamilton Airport about three hours before our flight departed. As YHM is a smaller airport, the check-in desk was hard to miss (it's practically the first thing you see when you walk in).
We checked in at the desk, but when flying Play, you also have the option of checking in online (which I did for the flight home). It was super easy to do and can definitely save some time if you're flying out of a busier airport on the way back.
Staff at check-in were friendly and welcoming. Once we got our boarding passes, we went through security, which was also quite easy as it's much smaller than security at major airports like Toronto Pearson.
We did experience some hiccups here though — there was an issue with our boarding passes, according to the agents, resulting in my colleague, Narcity video reporter Ashna Bharkhada, having to go through security twice, but we'll chalk these up as first-flight issues that aren't likely to happen often.
At YHM, you board planes by walking out onto the tarmac, which was fun. But keep in mind that you might want an umbrella on days with bad weather.
Boarding was smooth and the airline staff were very pleasant. Overall, check-in and boarding get a 4.5 out of 5, with half a point off for the issue with our boarding passes.
Seats & comfort: 3.5/5
A row of seats on the Play flight. Right: The back of a seat on the flight.
Seats on board our Play flight, which was an Airbus A320 Neo, seemed fairly standard for a low-cost carrier, with nothing to write home about in terms of cushioning.
In terms of comfort, the seats were a bit tight, especially if you're travelling with a personal item. I was sitting in a standard window seat near the front of the plane cabin, and with my backpack stowed at my feet, there wasn't tons of legroom. However, the trip was cozy enough, and I'd be willing to travel with this kind of seating again.
However, my colleague, Ashna, was sitting in a middle seat — a very different experience, as anyone who's been sat in a middle seat knows. For both of us, trying to retrieve items from our bags resulted in us knocking our heads on the seats in front of us.
One thing we both liked about the seats though was the headrests. You can move them up or down to adjust for your height, and also fold in the sides for some stability for your head and neck while napping on the plane.
While I predict that the legroom could be an issue for taller passengers, Play does have seats near the front of the plane and in the exit row with up to 10 inches more legroom. Despite a very full plane, there was also tons of space in the overhead bins, so you can always stow your items there for more space at your feet.
In all, we gave seating and comfort a 3.5 out of 5 — while the seats were fine for our purposes, they could be an issue for anyone taller than 5 feet, 4 inches. And while you can opt for more comfort on board, it comes at a price.
Entertainment & service: 3.5/5
A tray to place devices on the seat back.
Since Play operates with a "no frills" approach to air travel, the airline doesn't offer any kind of entertainment on board.
This means that you'll have to bring your own devices if you want to watch movies or shows during your trip. You'll also need to download shows beforehand, as there isn't any Wi-Fi available.
This approach is slightly different from other low-cost carriers — Canada Jetlines, a budget airline that debuted in 2022, offers a complimentary in-flight entertainment system with TV shows, movies, podcasts, music, and a moving map, while Flair Airlines asks travelers to download the Flair In-Flight App, on which passengers can watch free videos and get access to destination guides.
Play definitely isn't alone in their approach, however — low-cost airline Lynx Air also doesn't provide any entertainment on board.
For our flight, which was about six hours in length, this wasn't much of an issue — I made sure to download some movies on Netflix, which I didn't even end up needing. However, I will say that it would have been nice to have access to a flight map and have been able to track where our plane was at any given moment.
Your seat does come with a fold-out tray where you can place your devices so you don't have to hold onto them while watching. There are also USB and USB-C charging ports between seats.
If entertainment was lacking, however, the service made up for it. The flight staff were super friendly and personable, telling us how much they liked Toronto and Canada, and coming around multiple times asking if anyone wanted food or refreshments.
Their uniforms were also super stylish (hopefully passengers will be able to buy the belts in the future!).
Food: 4/5
Play's in-flight menu. Right: A hot sandwich and Pringles from the menu.
Play offers an onboard menu with snacks, small hot bites, beverages, larger hot items, and alcohol.
However, keep in mind that everything comes at a cost. The prices seemed pretty fair, with drinks like tea, coffee and soda for about 3 euros, snacks like Pringles, muffins, and beef jerky for 3-5 euros, and 9 euros for sandwiches and pizza.
If you order the airline's meal deal, which comes with your choice of hot food item (Hot Ham & Cheese Baguette, Vegan Wrap, or Pizza Margherita), a drink, and a chocolate bar, you'll pay 12 euros, which works out to be about CA$17.31.
In this case, Play covered the cost of our food and drinks for the trip — however, I wouldn’t mind paying these prices for a bite or beverage.
While there is a decent selection, you won't find full meals like pasta, salad, or any kind of meat dishes as you'd expect on a long-haul international flight.
What you do get, though, should at least satisfy your hunger — I ordered the Hot Ham & Cheese Baguette on the flight to Iceland and found it quite filling (I nearly couldn't finish it).
You can also, of course, bring your own food and skip the extra costs altogether.
One nice feature is the airline's selection of Icelandic chocolates, a fun way to get a taste of where you're headed. On our flight, I tried a Prince Polo bar, a dark chocolate-wrapped wafer candy bar that was quite good.
Licorice candy seems to be the country’s specialty, so go for the Freyja Draumur, which is milk chocolate with licorice, to try some. You can also get traditional Icelandic chocolate, which is chocolate with toffee and sea salt.
Overall, the food on the flight gets a score of 4 out of 5 for the decent offerings and mostly decent prices. It would just be nice if there were more options for full hearty meals on board.
Overall score: 3.8/5 or 15.5/20
The wing of a Play Airlines flight.
Overall, Play gets a 15.5 out of 20 for their new low-cost flights from Canada to Europe. It would be nice if the seats were a bit roomier, and if there was entertainment on board, but overall, this is a carrier I would definitely recommend for finding cheap airfare to European destinations.
One thing I especially like about Play is the unique ability travelers have to add a stopover in Iceland to their flight.
If you're traveling with Play to anywhere other than Iceland, your flight will stop in the country before continuing on. If you want, you can spend around an hour here just at the airport before continuing on your journey — however, you also have the option of extending your stay in Iceland up to a whole week! It could be a great way to see two places in one trip.
Will I fly with Play Airlines again? Absolutely! In fact, I'm already planning my next trip.
Before you get going, check out our Responsible Travel Guide so you can be informed, be safe, be smart, and most of all, be respectful on your adventure.
These prices are confirmed at the time of publishing, but they can change at any time. Taxes and fees may not be included.
