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NewLeaf Travel Co. Inc. is offering its first flights to the United States, banking on Canadians’ desire for cheap trips to sun destinations.

The discount travel operator, whose flights are operated by B.C.-based charter service Flair Airlines, said Wednesday that it will offer flights from Hamilton to Orlando, Fla., and from Edmonton and Calgary to Phoenix.

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Service will begin in mid-January and run until the end of April.

“Every time we expand our schedule, we prove the ‘experts’ wrong and we are quite happy about that,” NewLeaf CEO Jim Young said in a statement.

NewLeaf is the subject of an ongoing court challenge by air-passenger-rights advocate Gabor Lukacs, who has argued that its business model is putting passengers at risk. The Federal Court of Appeal will hear Lukacs’s challenge on Dec. 14.

NewLeaf could soon face new competition in the discount travel market. The federal government recently exempted two aspiring ultra-low-cost airlines, Canada Jetlines Ltd. and Enerjet, from the country’s foreign-ownership rules. Jetlines has said it plans to launch by summer 2017.