Air France To Connect Canadian, French Capitals

Credit: Joe Pries

Air France will launch service between Paris Charles de Gaulle (CDG) and Ottawa (YOW) in June as it continues to build its Canadian schedule.

The SkyTeam carrier will operate up to 50 weekly flights to five Canadian cities during the peak of the northern hemisphere summer season. The airline’s capacity going to/from Canada will be 25% higher versus 2019, according to Air France.

From June 27, the carrier will open service on the CDG-YOW route, flying to the Canadian capital 5X-weekly using an Airbus A330-200 aircraft.

It will be the only airline operating the route and the only carrier flying to Europe from YOW. Air France’s A330-200s are configured with 224 seats, including 36 in business class.

Air France has been offering passengers a 2X-daily bus shuttle service between Montreal Trudeau (YUL) and YOW, and that will continue after the Ottawa service is launched.

In addition to the new YOW route, Air France will bring back its seasonal CDG-Quebec City (YQB) service that was operated during the 2022 summer. It will fly the route 3X-weekly from May 2 using a Boeing 787-9 aircraft. The airline will continue to offer a 2X-daily bus shuttle between YQB and YUL.

Air France said both the YUL-YOW and YUL-YQB bus shuttles “are specifically scheduled to facilitate connections with Air France flights to and from Paris.”

During the summer season schedule, Air France will fly from CDG to YUL up to 3X-daily; to Toronto Pearson (YYZ) 2X-daily; and to Vancouver (YVR) 1X-daily.

Air France-KLM Group also operates to Canada via KLM flights from Amsterdam (AMS) to Calgary (YYC), Edmonton (YEG), YUL, YYZ and YVR.

Aaron Karp

Aaron Karp is a Contributing Editor to the Aviation Week Network.