• 

  Air Transat

  IATA/ICAO Code:

  TS/TSC

  Airline Type:

  Full Service Carrier

  Year Founded:

  1986

  CEO:

  Annick Guérard

  Country:

  Canada

  Hub(s):

  Montréal–Trudeau International Airport

  Region:

  North America

Yesterday, Canadian leisure carrier Air Transat operated the inaugural flight on its new Montreal-Amsterdam route. The airline plans to offer this service until mid-October with three flights per week to take advantage of the summer travel season.

Marking the occasion, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer at Air Transat, Joseph Adamo, said:

“We are very excited to provide our customers with easy access to another jewel of European culture. Amsterdam joins 18 other destinations to explore from Montreal. The Netherlands is a fascinating destination, both steeped in history and forward-looking, and known for its efforts to be environmentally responsible. Air Transat highlights this experience with the Airbus A321neoLR, the greenest aircraft in its class.”

Indeed, late last year, Simple Flying reported on Air Transat’s grand flight schedule for the 2022 summer travel season. The carrier also offers direct flights to several other major European cities like London, Paris, Malaga, Barcelona, Madrid, Rome, Dublin, Glasgow, and Manchester, among others.

The details

The award-winning leisure airline said it is adding the new route to meet heightened travel demand over the summer. Indeed, the route will only be offered until around mid-October, giving Canadian travelers plenty of time to discover Amsterdam and other parts of northern Europe.

Air Transat will fly the route three times a week, on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. The leisure carrier will use one of its Airbus A321neo(LR) aircraft for this service. Air Transat’s A321neos are outfitted in a two-class configuration with a total of 199 seats. 12 of those are business class products, while the rest are standard economy seats. All economy seats come with 31” of pitch and individual 10.1” individual touch screens, while the premium Club seats are slightly more suited to long journeys thanks to 38” of pitch and larger 13.3” touch screens.

The first flight (TS324) took off from Montréal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport (YUL) yesterday for the seven-hour transatlantic journey to Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport (AMS). At the time of publishing this article, the aircraft (registration C-GOIE) has finished its return journey back to YUL as flight TS325.

Second route to Amsterdam

In addition to the new YUL-AMS route, Air Transat also flies to Amsterdam from Toronto Pearson International Airport. The carrier recently resumed this route after a brief hiatus spanning a few months due to COVID-19-related travel restrictions. Flights on the YYZ-AMS route are operated four times a week to meet demand.

Despite having a few widebodies in its fleet, Air Transat is using the A321neo on this route as well. The A321 is a newer and much more efficient airliner, with fuel savings of up to 15%. With a range of over 4,500 miles, the A321neoLR is the perfect candidate for medium-demand long-range transatlantic journeys from Canada to Europe. According to data from ch-aviation, Air Transat has a fleet of 10 A321neoLR aircraft with an average age of fewer than two years.

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Have you ever flown on Air Transat’s Airbus A321neoLR? Please describe your experience in the comments.