Air Canada has their sights set on the European market with their latest route announcements, which will mean connections from Vancouver to some of the most important airports in the continent.
This year Air Canada has already launched new international services to Brisbane and to Dublin from Vancouver, with new flights launching to Delhi in October. Air Canada has also launched new US transborder flights from Vancouver this year to Chicago, San Jose, and San Diego.
The airline will offer the only non-stop flights between Vancouver and Delhi when it debuts the three times weekly route beginning October 20, 2016, in time for Diwali festivities. The service will be operated using Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner equipment and will offer the fastest elapsed flying time into the India from Calgary, Edmonton and the US West Coast cities of Seattle, Portland and Los Angeles.
Tianjin Airlines was awarded licences by the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) last year to introduce flights between Tianjin and both London and Vancouver in conjunction with Chongqing as well as services to Moscow from both Chinese cities. It now appears that with its first two A330s currently under assembly that is making final preparations for its long-haul launch. The first is due for delivery next month.
Xiamen Airlines is significantly expanding its international presence following the arrival of its new Boeing 787 Dreamliner fleet. Over a three year period (2015 -2017) it plans to introduce seven new long-haul markets to its network. This has commenced with flights starting to Amsterdam and Sydney last year. Alongside Vancouver the airline plans flights to Melbourne and Seattle in 2016 and it has recently applied for rights to serve Los Angeles and New York from 2017.
Nassau Paradise Island Promotion Board (NPIPB) were announced as the overall winner of the Routes Americas edition of the Routes 2016 Marketing Awards which were formally announced last night during the Networking Evening event which took place in El Cuartel de Ballaja in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Air Canada continues to strategically grow its international network at Vancouver. This new seasonal route follows the recent announcement of several enhancements at the airline's Vancouver International Airport hub for 2016, including new Transborder services to Chicago, San Jose and San Diego, double daily flights to London Heathrow, and the only flights linking Canada to Brisbane, Australia.
The arrival of additional Dreamliner aircraft has enabled Air Canada to grow its long-haul network directly with the modern generation airliner, while also redeploying older aircraft assets into its Air Canada rouge leisure division to bring further new routes. The airline will have a fleet of 21 aircraft by 2016 (it has 37 on order) and is accelerating the conversion of existing routes to Dreamliner service from Toronto to Asia, Europe and South America.
The new passenger operation will launch in December 2015 and will grow to a five destination network by the middle of January 2016. All the flights will be operated using a 184-seat Boeing 757-200 and National has partnered with Tourico Holidays to package flights with hotels, rental cars, cruises, activities, vacation homes and more alongside its seat-only offering.
As revealed exclusively by our schedules blog, Airline Route, on the morning of September 14, 2015, WestJet plans to introduce flights to London Gatwick from Calgary, Edmonton, St John’s, Toronto, Vancouver and Winnipeg, the latter’s first regular transatlantic service to the UK since Zoom Airlines served the market in September 2008.
Air Canada will use its leisure airline, Air Canada rouge to add flights to Budapest, Glasgow and Warsaw and resume a link to Prague last served in the 1970s, while Air Transat will offer new flights from Canada to Glasgow, Nice, Pisa, Rome and Zagreb.
While Vancouver will be the first Canadian destination to be served by British Airways (BA) with the A380, it will be the fourth destination in North America linked to London by the SuperJumbo after Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, and from October this year, Miami. BA also use the type on flights to Hong Kong, Johannesburg and Singapore.
The three-times-weekly link will be operated with Air Canada’s ultra modern Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, and the new service will cut travel time between the two cities by five hours.
Vancouver will be the first North American destination to be linked to Kunming, one of China’s premier tourism regions and the new long-haul connection follows the successful introduction last year from Yunnan Province to Europe, via China Eastern to Paris Charles De Gaulle Airport.
The revised schedule will see the airline boost its inventory by more than ten per cent to offer up to ten daily flights in the spring, eleven during the peak travel months of July and August, and nine in the autumn.
After the success of its first six direct return flights in January 2015 between Sydney and Vancouver, Qantas has made the decision to resume service for the busy summer and winter holidays. The direct service proved to be popular with both Australian and Canadian passengers and this upcoming schedule will offer greater flexibility with a switch from two to three flights per week.
The new Air France connection to Vancouver will launch on March 29, 2015 and will initially operate on a three times weekly basis through to May 4, 2015 when it will be increased to a five times weekly schedule for the peak summer period, before returning to a three times weekly offering from September 14, 2015 through to the end of the season on October 24, 2015.
Qantas previously served Vancouver as an extension of its flights to San Francisco on a short season basis from summer 2006 through the winter 2007/2008 schedule. Through this period the carrier offered 37,900 seats in and out of the Canadian city.
The popularity of the airline’s service between Auckland and Los Angeles will see the airline step up frequency next year from twice daily to three times a day on three days of the week, while also extending the duration of its peak season capacity increase to Vancouver.
UK carrier Virgin Atlantic Airways is to suspend flights to Cape Town, Mumbai, Tokyo and Vancouver as it instead looks to strengthen its transatlantic partnership with shareholder Delta Air Lines. The latest network changes are part of an ongoing network review and business recovery plan to return the carrier to long-term profitability.
On the domestic front the carrier will introduce twice daily flights to San Antonio from October 2, 2014 and a daily link to Tampa from November 6, 2014, while a daily international service to Edmonton and twice daily offering to Vancouver, both in Canada, will also start on October 2, 2014.
Air Canada says it will continue to evaluate future market opportunities as new aircraft are introduced into its mainline fleet and existing aircraft are released for operation by Air Canada rouge as market demand warrants. Since the launch in July 2013 of Air Canada rouge, Air Canada has deployed its leisure carrier to a growing number of Caribbean, European and select sun destinations in the United States.
In the first change to the Philippine - Canada Bilateral Air Services Agreement (BASA) since December 2008, the two sides have agreed to increase the frequency entitlement for each side from seven flights a week to 14. Fifth freedom rights were also increased from four to five per week.
The initial tentative schedule shows the aircraft will operate twice daily on the Toronto - Halifax route from May 23, 2014 through to May 25, 2014 and then on various dates through to the end of June 2014. Alongside this domestic link, Air Canada also plans to use the aircraft on its flights from Toronto to Zurich (from May 25, 2014 to July 14, 2014) and London (from July 2, 2014 to July 13, 2014).
