I'm imagining that Rouge will be expanded to take over sun flights from Canadian cities that area currently served by AC mainline.

I could also see a more concentrated effort to compete with Air Transat to Europe during the summer with increased secondary destinations.

Finally, I suspect that markets that are underserved by Rouge -Winnipeg/Edmonton/Calgary - will see an expansion in sun flying.

AC will have a bunch of A319s and A321s that are due to be replaced by 737s, so I suspect that the best ones of those are what you'll see on those routes, with maybe a few 767s being leased.

There may be some domestic routes that also get Rogue. This summer AC switch the Toronto to Victoria flight to a Rouge 767. Yuk.

Nothing wrong with a Rouge 767 really - I didn't mind it, anyway.

YUL-DUB officially announced today

4 weekly seasonal

Yes, along with YYZ-SNN ... operated with AC's new 737 MAX 8 aircraft...

https://aircanada.mediaroom.com/2017...o-and-Montreal

YWG impressed the hell out of me yesterday. Great design, beautiful gates, right sized and maybe the best arrivals hall out there.

Easyjet, Norwegian and Westjet to enable customers to connect at London Gatwick

Easyjet, Norwegian and Westjet have announced that they are to start selling one another’s fares on their respective websites. The service will allow customers to connect at London Gatwick from Easyjet flights to the other airlines’ long haul services...

https://www.businesstraveller.com/bu...ondon-gatwick/

Exciting.

And in increase on the YVR-DUB route to 5x PW, still on the Rouge 767.

Interesting as this seems to me to be one if the first instances of running mainline and domestic into the same airport, at last intercontinental.

I wonder if it means AC will be more inclined to send Rouge and Mainline to the same airport or if YVR-DUB will be switched to mainline once the appropriate aircraft frees up.

I think Rouge is already stepping up its presence this winter in YYC with 767 service to OGG, HUX, CUN, and PVR alongside 319 service to LAS and PHX. Tha's more than double the operations Rouge had at YYC last winter. SJD will probably eventually end up on Rouge too. Interesting to see if they continue to add more in the future, or possibly even a Europe destination to compete with TS.

TS at YYC has really become a non player. All that's left is 3 weekly YYC-LGW and once weekly AMS (originating in YVR). Gone are CDG, MAN, FRA and GLA.

If Rouge were to make a European play from YYC I highly doubt it would be to LGW. And AMS would be too small a market for them. The remaining European markets from YYC would also be too small for rouge to tackle.

Other than the recent sun stuff added at YYC, AC's main focus has been building at YYZ and YUL in the east and YVR in the west. I understand their strategy will continue that pattern for the time being.

The transfer of most of the sunflights from mainline to rouge is a default due to the rouging of OGG. Had to cycle the plane somewhere.

I wonder how this will work. Easyjet are purely a point to point airline, and don't provide for connections even within their own network. Their terms and conditions explicitly state this.

Looks like ACs expansion will continue:

Air Canada, pilots reach deal for more aircraft in low-cost Rouge unit
https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/rep...beandmail.com&

The expansion is only for the narrow body fleet , so this likely means the 737 MAX set to replace the 320 fleet will now mean a portion of the 320 fleet is moved to rouge rather than retired. Big news for YYZ and YUL as that is where the 320/319 Rouge fleet is based as if I recall correctly they shut down their YVR base.

Hopefully some news about widebody expansion for Rouge as well, since the narrowbody range makes any interesting routes less likely.

The market is 'speaking with their wallets'.

The sun market is the most competitive market in Canada - AC, Westjet, Sunwing and Air Transat are competing against each other. It is also the market where the customers tend to be most price sensitive and has the fewest number of business class passengers. This agreement will probably allow AC to move most - if not all - sun flying to Rouge. It makes sense.

Rouge does compete with Air Transat and Westjet on Euro operations during the summer. They already have a decent setup to compete there - I can't imagine they'd have much use for more wide-body aircraft. There isn't much more in the way of destinations that can justify Rouge service.

As Air Canada wants to keep their premium passengers happy, I don't think they'll cannibalize their existing mainline domestic and international routes. The only exception might be increased service to LGW internationally or to destinations in Canada that are dominated by non-business travelers (i.e. Victoria, BC)

Air Canada Will Host Investor Day in Toronto

http://www.travelpulse.com/news/airl...n-toronto.html

Perhaps some official route announcements coming for YYZ?

I'm really interested to see if we get a new map.

Here some details:
http://www.gatwickairport.com/at-the...twickconnects/

It is not what you traditionally think of as an interline connection. There is also a video someone that shows how it works.

Key problems:
- you still have to claim your bags. An airport staff member is on hand to check you in and print the boarding passes for your connecting flight. The airport staff also print the luggage tag, collect the luggage fees etc. That is work than a normal interline.
- the person that does this for you is not an airline employee but an airport employee, so they can't do much beyond what you can do at the kiosk.
- if you miss the flight they will not change you to more you on the next available flight. But that is it.

I don't believe they have ever used these events to officially announce any new routes... but their "network opportunity" maps have sure been pretty accurate so far!

These maps are few and far between. They came out with a few of them in the 2014-16 timeframe with the arrival of the 787s, but none before or after. Since 787 international expansion is pretty much wrapped up and since we didn't see similar maps with the arrival of the 777s 10 years ago, or with the 737MAX, I doubt we'll see something new.