Enerjet is offering a special Calgary-Kelowna Christmas flight for as little as $50 each way.
"Our 149-seat Boeing 737-700 plane is going to Kelowna Flightcraft for maintenance and would otherwise be flying empty from Calgary to Kelowna Dec. 21 and then back to Calgary on Jan. 2," explained Enerjet vice-president Darcy Morgan.
"We thought: What a great opportunity to fill up the plane and let the people decide how much they're willing to pay."
To do that, Enerjet set up an eBay store at EnerjetTravelClub.ca to auction off seats.
Seats are released daily in waves. The public can bid and by day's end can see if they were successful.
So far, one-way flights have gone for as little as $50 and as much as $200, including taxes and fees.
Comparable one-ways on Air Canada and WestJet are $300 to $450.
The seats that are snagged for an astounding $50 barely cover the taxes and fees on a one-way on the route, which range from $35 to $46.
Enerjet is the first airline to auction flights on eBay.
The flight on Friday, Dec. 21, leaves Calgary at 7 p.m. and arrives in Kelowna at 7:02 p.m.
On Wednesday, Jan. 2, the plane departs Kelowna at 10:30 a.m. and lands in Calgary at 12:38 p.m.
With only the two flights, Enerjet isn't going to shake up the busy Kelowna-Calgary route, which is serviced with multiple daily flights by Air Canada and WestJet.
However, Enerjet felt it was important to try this experiment "because Canadians deserve choice and flexibility," according to Morgan.
"The other airlines dictate when and for how much families and businesses will pay for flights to visit their family or travel for the company," added Morgan.
"We thought we would go the eBay route and let people decide how much they wanted to pay."
Currently, Enerjet has three jets that fly workers from Calgary and Edmonton to their oil and gas jobs in Fort McMurray.
But it is toying with the idea of offering more charters like the Kelowna-Calgary one.
Enerjet is also flying Edmonton-Puerto Vallarta for Transat Holidays over the winter.