That totally makes sense, don't get me wrong, but why no french language requirements then?

When China Southern announced (then cancelled) then reannounced Toronto, the best evidence was hiring Toronto-based crews.

IMO they should've based this sap in YUL. Your costs of living are so low I am infinitely jealous.

I don't think so.

Interesting discussion over on airliners about this...

That's a good question. I don't know. Could very well be YYZ will come first. Or maybe they feel asking for a requirement for 3 languages in Toronto might be a bit too much. All of this is simply my opinion mind you....

Wouldn't be far fetched either for TAP to have changed their minds and launch YYZ ahead of YUL.

Good to see TAP come back. I ended up taking their L1011 from Toronto (with a stop in Montreal) to Lisbon back in the 90s.

They may view Montreal as a different market than Toronto. Have a sales manager for English Canada and a different one for Montreal. Alternatively they are just doing YYZ for the time being and will see how that pans out before taking on Montreal. Either way with Air Canada providing connections to most of North America they should do well.

Someone with contacts over at airliners is saying it will be YYZ-LIS, 5x weekly in summer, 3x weekly in winter, with A332/A333 equipment.

Will be interesting to see 4 carriers battle it out on this route.....Not many Canada-Europe routes with 4 carriers.....

Nothing concrete on YUL yet.

I can see them waiting for the A321neoLR to launch YUL. They only get those in 2019 though......

That's definitely a lot of YYZ-LIS capacity. I could see SATA dropping the LIS route and focusing on the Azores.

In other news, it appears Alitalia has gone seasonal. Can't seem to book anything in January/February but booking seems back in S17.

I answered my own question. Alitalia suspends Toronto for a month and a half in Jan/Feb.

Its been like this for the passed few years. Even AC has trouble filling up a 767 from YYZ/YUL-FCO in the winter months.

Not sure I'd call a 1.5 month gap 'seasonal' so that's probably why Wikipedia keeps getting edited.

FCO makes for a crappy hub I think. Alitalia should've focused on MXP and the government should've closed LIN. About 10 years ago YYZ used to see double daily Alitalia service. MXP and FCO.

Aer Lingus will be operating an A332 on the EIDW-CYYZ route as of 14 Mar 2017, replacing the B752 currently on that route.

Wow Air increasing both YYZ and YUL to daily service for summer 2017.

http://www.routesonline.com/news/38/...ration-in-s17/

Norwegian is also expanding their CDG-US operations. Wonder how long it will take for them to start flying from LGW and CDG to Canada. Maybe Norwegian is the answer, in order for YYC and YOW to get their CDG service.

http://www.routesonline.com/news/38/...rom-july-2017/

Damn!!!

Another big new route announcement for YVR, this one from Hainan subsidiary Hong Kong Airlines, bringing their brand new A350-900XWB to YVR daily starting next summer.

YVR seems to be announcing new international daily flights on a near weekly basis these days. Just crazy. As far as my calculations can see it looks like summer 2017 is showing a 16% increase in international capacity vs 2016... and it's only November!

http://www.airbus.com/fileadmin/medi...g_Airlines.jpg
http://www.airbus.com/galleries/phot...return_id=3170

Looks like Air Canada has dropped the second daily on both the YYZ-CDG and YVR-LHR routes:
https://twitter.com/Airlineroute/sta...48887780200448

Doesn't make a ton of sense to me at this point given longstanding demand on these routes, but could be part of a larger strategic move.

Also leaves open the question of what AC does with it's highly valuable LHR slot.

Its all for a reason, if the route was't preforming well might as well use the plane somewhere else. In the case of YYZ-CDG, I'm almost sure a second daily was over capacity, heck even YUL could't handle double 77W service. As for YVR-LHR, must have something to do with YVR-LGW service coming into play.

Wow, YVR is the only Canadian airport to even see an A359 and not from just one, but THREE different airlines!! That's just crazy! :tup:

There hasn't been an official announcement of this route yet... only from me... :haha:

Expecting some sort of official announcement soon though as the government approval process was still pending. In any event look for a start date of 30 June.... now just waiting for CZ to announce MEX and Interjet too....

Never understood why there are no non-stop flights to YUL from Western Canadian cities like YYJ, YXE, YQR and YXU.

Maybe they've decided to give YEG-LHR another go ! ;)

Also read on airliners that Rouge will be starting summer seasonal YVR-CDG next summer. Don't know how reliable the person saying this is....

You do realize there are only 45 or so A359s flying around the world right? With the largest number of operators coming from Asia. It's not hard to see why YVR sees it more than YYZ or YUL. Also, it makes sense to use the bird on the shortest East Asia-North America run. You want slack in the schedules in case something goes wrong.

Seriously? How many people do you think fly from YUL to those cities in a day? If you round up all the people in YUL headed to those 4 places on a given day, you probably couldn't even fill an E170.

Jazz used to offer one stop same plane service from YQR and YXE to YUL via YOW i believe, but that is no longer the case. YUL-YXU was also tried, but failed.

They would be unprofitable, maybe? Or less profitable than connecting passengers through Toronto? Air Canada uses relatively small planes (E-190s and CRJ700/900s) on their YYZ-YQR/YXE runs, so I'd infer those routes are pretty marginal from YUL.

YYZ-YYJ gets Airbuses, but I believe that may be due to operational limitations of the E-190s and distance limitations of the CRJ.

When I lived in YXE and was heading to Montreal usually found YWG the best connecting airport to go through. YYZ was normally a longer trip. Even YYC worked better that YYZ most times. Could YXE support a direct YUL flight that was timed to connect with the European flights? Yes.

The YYZ-YYJ flight has been full most times I have been on it. Usually it has been a A320 and at time A319. I have had also connected to YUL and YYZ multiple times by flying through YVR. There always appears other passengers do the same thing.