They do? The pax numbers paint a much different story.

Just received a tweet...depending approval LIS-YUL it would be an A330 ..2017 crossing fingers !

Simply looking at it from a demographic point of view is not really accurate. Yes, YYZ has a bigger Portuguese community, but there are more factors at play here.

Both Montreal and Lisbon are huge tourist markets. YUL-Portugal O&D traffic (be it tourism or VFR) is increasing, as has been shown by TS's recent expansion for next summer.

Tourism to Montreal is on the rise. For the first time ever, Montreal will see over 10 million tourists in 2016 (+11%). That is massive, and any foreign airline launching service will benefit form that as well. On a personal level, I know of several people in my immediate surrounding that has or will go to Portugal this year.
It is a much cheaper destination than other European countries, so I can see why TS and other carriers want to increase service from Portugal to North America.

Don't get me wrong, part of me thinks YYZ will get the service first as well, but if YUL gets the service first, there are plenty of reasons to justify that too.

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/...s-in-2016.html

Sultan of Brunei's plane was at YVR yesterday. Not sure what it was doing there but not a shabby looking 747-8...

http://scontent.cdninstagram.com/t51...Mjg3Mw%3D%3D.2

http://scontent.cdninstagram.com/t51...MDQxNQ%3D%3D.2

https://www.instagram.com/planelovers15/?hl=en

Maybe those numbers are slightly outdated but the latest "census"-ish for CMA's shows this:

200K Portuguese in the GTA: http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2...ustom=&TABID=1

50K Portuguese in Greater Montreal: http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2...m=&TABID=1

It's not even kind of close. And that was 5 years ago.
But, true, demographics alone is not the only reason for starting or not starting a route, however it would surprise me if visitor numbers from Portugal to Montreal were higher than they are to Toronto. VFR alone would probably account for higher numbers in Toronto. Both destinations would be quite low yield I'm guessing so in my opinion this will come down to tourism, VFR, and a *A hub, all of which favour YYZ.

But I could be dead wrong...

I believe Boston is 1st.

Either was TAP finally coming back to Canada is great news. In my opinion YYZ seems like the obvious choice here, but if AC, TS and SATA already fly the route, YUL is a perfect opportunity to compete against TS and codeshare with AC.

Pearson is unpleasantly crowded. They need to move ahead with the new piers ASAP. There is so much silence from them on that front.

Not bad for a "country" with the population of less than half a mill. Thank you O&G...!:)

There, fixed that for ya.:D

I don't know about connections but Pearson is a pretty good airport to deal with. I have a problem with how slow customs can be but that's something out of the airport's control. They've been requesting additional Canadian and American border guards for years. It's never enough.

Otherwise, it has modern facilities, updated retail/food options, good lounges... architecture is pretty stunning in T1 (I like the vast coldness now that the ground level is extremely animated) and most importantly flights to every corner of the world. Convenient.

http://www.routesonline.com/news/38/...craft-changes/

YYZ-IST gets a bump in seats during off peak season from 787-8 to 787-9. Coincidentally, this is when YUL-PVG starts, so I think this is more indicative of lack of 787-8s rather than IST performing well for AC.

Frankly, i'm surprised AC haven't pulled out of Turkey altogether.

Load factors are still good to IST.

Fares are apparently trash though.

Just spoke with a colleague who went to IST as a tourist. He said the main tourist attractions were almost deserted. He apparently went to a museum and he was the only one there. He had booked a hotel at 180 Euros a night. Before he left, he canceled and rebooked the same hotel for 70 a night.

None of this is good news for Istanbul.

Colour me surprised, I would have thought tourism in Turkey would have taken a hit in recent months.

Edit: post above suggests that it has. I've certainly noticed low fares to IST lately...

What new piers? T1 or T3 or both?

T3 is like the poor cousin to T1. T3 is getting slightly better in terms of shops/eateries, but it is terribly overcrowded. I was just there yesterday and couldn't even hear the gate PAs for all the noise from the 4 flights crammed into the domestic/international swing gate pier of the B side and boarding at the same time.

I would like to see T3 build a third wing so one wing can be all domestic, the second wing can be all international and the third wing all transborder. And get rid of that ridiculous remote pier that Westjet and Westjet Encore are using at the moment in the process!

^ T3 finally got some love earlier this year, it looks good... well, parts of it do. The loooong walk to the Westjet area is a bit much, though.

Given that it has been over 10 years since T1 opened and traffic has grown since then, I'd hope GTAA has the wheels turning on an expansion sometime soon.

There is some expansion work planned for T3. Air Canada is building a new wide body hangar and the old one glued against the T3 satellite is being demolished. Apparently the remote terminal will then be expanded. I don't blame the GTAA for being conservative as they got badly burned by the last round of expansion.

People keep saying dates are trash but I can't find an especially cheap one - certainly not compared with the cheap fares to Paris.

Last month on urban Toronto I heard the announcement for construction would come any time.

http://www.routesonline.com/news/38/...-s17-schedule/

One would think this route would have been doing super well, unfortunately Air Transat has decided to not bring it back next summer.