AIR Canada’s upcoming launch of year-round services on the Melbourne route from Vancouver has received a boost, with an extra weekly frequency set to be introduced by the end of the year.
The Canadian carrier debuted non-stop seasonal flights to the Victorian capital in Dec (running through until early Feb), ahead of the commencement of regular thrice weekly ops out of MEL (on Tue, Fri and Sun), starting 03 Jun.
Air Canada gm for Australia/NZ Vic Naughton revealed to Travel Daily this morning that based on strong early demand the airline was ramping up Melbourne services to four times weekly.
The upgauge takes effect from 05 Nov and will see the MEL-YVR schedule adjusted to Mon, Wed, Fri & Sun departures, currently loaded in the GDS until Mar.
While not quite the desired daily frequencies to MEL (TD 06 Dec), Naughton remains optimistic of future capacity increases.
“The intention is to keep going beyond Mar and hopefully to go to daily by then,” he said.
Naughton lauded the local trade for its support of the route, telling TD “our Australian trade performance has been amazing and they are really backing it”.
“On our sales calls, every shop we visit is aware of the route and were excited about it.”
He said sales from Melbourne were particularly strong beyond Vancouver to New York.
“There’s obviously more carriers and choice out of Sydney to New York than Melbourne, so for that reason we’re luring lots of traffic to Newark,” Naughton remarked.
MEANWHILE, Air Canada has begun placing its code on core Virgin Australia routes to MEL to gain additional feed for its flight to YVR from destinations, including Hobart, Adelaide and Perth.
Source: traveldaily