Air Canada has resumed flights between Toronto and Manchester, the airline's third destination in the UK alongside London and Edinburgh. The route restarted on May 30th and will offer close to 3,000 seats across five weekly roundtrips.

Air Canada restarts Toronto-Manchester flights

As Simple Flying has previously reported, Air Canada's Airbus A330 will return to Manchester from Toronto with five weekly transatlantic roundtrips between May 30th and September 30th.

On May 30th, Flight AC808 took off from Toronto Pearson International Airport (YYZ) at 23:53 local time and landed at Manchester Airport (MAN) at 11:39 the next day.

The flight was operated by an Air Canada Airbus A330-300 (registration: C-GKUH), which also flew the return leg (flight AC809) on June 1st.

Air canada
Manchester joins Edinburgh and London in Air Canada's UK network. Photo: FlightRadar24.com

Ian Costigan, Interim Managing Director at Manchester Airport, said,

"We are thrilled to see Air Canada return to Manchester Airport as we play our part in reconnecting our region with the world. The service to Toronto is fantastic news for companies large and small across the North who do business with Canada, and also for tourism and those visiting friends and family."

With five weekly flights between YYZ and MAN, Air Canada becomes the largest operator on this route, offering a total of 2,970 weekly seats. The carrier's only competitor on this route is Air Transat, which operates three flights per week.

In 2019, YYZ-MAN attracted almost 150,000 passengers, making it the third-busiest route between Toronto and the UK.

Promotional fares available

Promotional fares on this route start at GBP 397 ($497) each way. The full schedule is as follows:

  • Flight AC808 - Toronto (YYZ) 21:30 – Manchester (MAN) 09:20+1 - Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday.
  • Flight AC809 - Manchester (MAN) 12:15 – Toronto (YYZ) 14:50 - Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday.

The Airbus A330-300 offers 297 seats in three classes - 32 in business, 24 in premium economy, and 241 in economy - including Dream Cabin products.

Air Canada has 16 Airbus A330s in its fleet with an average age of around 17 years. The carrier's other connections with the UK are served by its Boeing 787 Dreamliner, 777-300ER and 737 MAX 8 aircraft.

Discover more aviation news with Simple Flying.

Rebuilding its UK network

After relaunching seasonal flights to Edinburgh last week, Air Canada now offers direct connections to three UK destinations - London (LHR), Edinburgh (EDI), and Manchester (MAN)

The airline flies between Toronto (YYZ) and all three cities, while it also flies to London from Vancouver (YVR), Halifax (YHZ), Calgary (YYC), and Montreal (YUL).

Air Canada Airbus A330-300
TAP's A330-300s ended up at Air Canada. Photo: Markus Eigenheer via Flickr

Air Canada will offer 43,242 seats per week between Canada and the UK this summer. Before the pandemic, over 3.6 million passengers flew between the two countries, making it the second-busiest UK market behind the US.

Have you flown with Air Canada between Toronto and Manchester before? What did you think of the flight? Let us know in the comments.