Some 16 of the 34 resumptions are from Toronto, 14 from Montréal, three from Vancouver, and one from Halifax. The vast majority, but not all, were last served pre-pandemic.
It comes as Canada's flag carrier reveals ten additional short-haul routes: Toronto to Salt Lake City; Montréal to Atlanta, Detroit, Gander, Minneapolis, Nashville, and San Diego; Vancouver to Austin and Halifax; and Calgary to Fort St. John. Only Toronto-Salt Lake has been served before, briefly in 2006 and then May 2016 to October 2017.
Routes restarting in March and April
Toronto to Tel Aviv will kick off the returning routes, with a departure set for March 1st. Nearly half of the 34 routes will resume in March or April. They're shown below and include classic and tried-and-tested leisure and visiting friends and relatives (VFR) markets. As with American Airlines, this isn't a time for experimentation but rather to focus on surefire winners.
As you'd expect, frequencies start low, even once-weekly, but gradually rise as summer progresses, hopefully in line with demand. The exception is Halifax to London Heathrow. Not only does it have five-weekly services, but they're operated by 169-seat B737 MAX 8s (which partly explains why it starts higher). It also operates to the UK during the day, leaving Nova Scotia at 11:00 and arriving at Heathrow at 21:00 local time.
- Toronto-Tel Aviv: March 1st, three-weekly in the first week
- Toronto-Amsterdam: March 2nd, three-weekly
- Toronto-Paris CDG: March 2nd, three-weekly
- Montréal-Rome: March 26th, twice-weekly
- Toronto-Lisbon: March 26th, three-weekly
- Toronto-Vienna: March 26th, four-weekly
- Montréal-Lisbon: March 27th, twice-weekly
- Toronto-Athens: March 27th, twice-weekly
- Toronto-Rome: March 27th, three-weekly
- Montréal-Athens: March 28th, twice-weekly
- Toronto-Venice: April 15th, once-weekly
- Montréal-Venice: April 16th, once-weekly
- Toronto-Tokyo Narita: April 27th, three-weekly
- Halifax-London Heathrow: April 30th, five-weekly
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Those returning in May
May is a crucial month for resumptions, starting, like two months previously, with Tel Aviv. Air Canada inaugurated the long, 5,482-mile (8,823km) route from Montréal in June 2017. It operated summer-seasonally until October 2019 and again between August and October 2021. Its 'relaunch' is thus a natural extension of what it was to do anyway.
It's a similar story for Montréal to Cairo, which commenced in June 2021. The route is driven, in part, by the large North African community established in the Canadian city. Booking data shows that about 34,000 round-trip point-to-point passengers transited between the cities in 2019, but the one-way base fare ($287) was low, as is often the case for VFR markets.
- Montréal-Tel Aviv: May 1st, twice-weekly in the first week
- Vancouver-Frankfurt: May 1st, five-weekly
- Toronto-Copenhagen: May 2nd, three-weekly
- Montréal-Cairo: May 3rd, three-weekly
- Toronto-Budapest: May 3rd, three-weekly
- Montréal-Casablanca: May 4th, three-weekly
- Toronto-Barcelona: May 4th, five-weekly
- Montréal-Barcelona: May 6th, three-weekly
- Montréal-Nice: May 12th, three-weekly
- Toronto-Madrid: May 19th, three-weekly
- Montréal-Milan Malpensa: May 21st, three-weekly
- Toronto-Edinburgh: May 30th, once-daily
- Toronto-Manchester: May 30th, four-weekly
Markus Eigenheer via Flickr.
And in June
Vancouver to Ireland's capital is one of five routes back in June. Air Canada Rouge started in June 2016, with the lower-cost unit operating it until June 2019 using B767-300ERs. It then switched to the parent's A330-300s and ended for the summer season in October 2019. Its return comes after a nearly three-year absence and will now use B787-8s.
- Toronto-Keflavik: June 1st, four-weekly in the first week
- Vancouver-Dublin: June 1st, four-weekly in the first week
- Montréal-Dublin: June 2nd, three-weekly
- Montréal-Keflavik: June 2nd, three-weekly
- Montréal-Tokyo Narita: June 4th, twice-weekly
- Montréal-Algiers: June 8th, three-weekly
- Vancouver-Zurich: June 17th, four-weekly
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