Air Canada to restart India operations soon

Makes efforts to attract more Indians

Canadian national carrier Air Canada, which had suspended its India operations on May 31, 2007, will soon reconnect with India. The airline, which used to fly a Boeing 777 to India, suspended operations as it was finding it uneconomical.

“The type of aircraft was the issue. The Boeing 787-900 made it sensible and economical to operate direct flights to India because it's cheap to operate," said Duncan Bureau, vice-president, Global Sales-Air Canada, in Bengaluru on Thursday at a press conference hosted by Canada Tourism Commission-India.

The airline plans to operate its newly-acquired Boeing 787-900 from Toronto to New Delhi from November 2. Initially, the airline will operate four flights a week. It will gradually increase the frequency of its flights to seven a week, added Cross. The configuration of the aircraft will include 29 business class seats, 247 economy class seats and 21 in premium economy. The airline said it had sold out business class and premium economy. Meanwhile, it has sold about 50 per cent of the economy class.

After launching the 13.5 hour flight to New Delhi, it would consider operating the Toronto-Mumbai flights. Later, it would even consider a New Delhi-Vancouver flight.

These moves, according to Canadian consulate officials, will help increase the flow of visitors to Canada. The number of travellers to Canada was around 175,000 in 2014 and it was about 20 per cent over and above than that of 2013.

The North American nation wants to attract more travellers from South India. Canada, hence, is making it less cumbersome for travellers to get a visa for travelling to Canada. With more than 1.2 million strong Indian diaspora in Canada, the latter wants to make the best of situation, and hence is trying to attract more Indians to the country.

For instance, if one has a US Visa, then he/she can get a 10-year multiple entry visa, said a Canadian official.