- Air Canada has scaled down its announced expansion
- Air India to lead the India Canada market in terms of seats
- Nearly matches frequencies with Air Canada
- Air Canada continues to have diverse offerings
In early June, when Air Canada announced changes and additions to its flights to India, I had wondered if Air India would respond to Air Canada, and placed the bets on this happening after the full deployment of the A350 was announced. It has now turned out exactly as predicted. Air India is adding capacity to Canada this winter, and comes after the full deployment of A350 was announced a few weeks ago.
Not only has Air India added flights to Toronto, Air Canada has gone back from its expansion announcements with flights for sale being fewer than those which were announced in early June.
Air India is adding flights to Toronto and will offer double daily services starting winter schedule. The airline is adding capacity starting Sept 01, with weekly frequency being 10x from 7x currently. It subsequently becomes 14x weekly.
The two flights will operate as below and will see the legacy B777-300ER in operation.
AI187 DEL0255 – 0745YYZ
AI189 DEL1515 – 1935YYZ
AI188 YYZ1155 – 1200(+1)DEL
AI190 YYZ0010 – 0035(+1)DEL
Coupled with daily services to Vancouver, Air India will have 21 weekly flights each way between India and Canada.
Air Canada scales down
Air Canada had announced the scale up of India operations to 25 weekly flights, with 18 non-stop between Canada and India and seven weekly service to Delhi from Calgary, via London. The services were to be
- Toronto to Mumbai: four times a week
- Toronto to Delhi: seven times a week
- Montreal to Delhi: seven times a week
- Calgary to Delhi (via London): seven times a week
As of today, the services look as below
- Toronto to Mumbai: Thrice a week (Monday departure from Toronto dropped)
- Toronto to Delhi: Seven times a week
- Montreal to Delhi: Five times a week (Tuesday and Thursday departure from Montreal dropped)
- Calgary to Delhi (via London): Seven times a week
With the reduction of three services than the ones announced in the past, this gets Air Canada to 22 weekly frequencies with 6570 seats each way, as compared to 7400 seats each way announced by the airline in June. The schedule for December sees all announced flights in operation, while January is a mix of 25 weekly frequencies in few weeks and 22 in other.
| Flt No | Dep S | Arr S | Dep T | Arr T | Freq | Eqpt | Seats |
| AC47 | BOM | YYZ | 23:45 | 06:45 | 1,4,6 | 777-200LR | 300 |
| AC851 | DEL | LHR | 06:45 | 11:20 | Daily | 787-9 | 298 |
| AC51 | DEL | YUL | 00:15 | 06:10 | 12357 | 787-9 | 298 |
| AC43 | DEL | YYZ | 23:55 | 06:25 | Daily | 777-200LR | 300 |
| AC850 | LHR | DEL | 12:00 | 02:25 | Daily | 787-9 | 298 |
| AC50 | YUL | DEL | 20:55 | 21:55 | 13567 | 787-9 | 298 |
| AC46 | YYZ | BOM | 20:00 | 21:45 | 3,5,7 | 777-200LR | 300 |
| AC42 | YYZ | DEL | 20:00 | 21:40 | Daily | 777-200LR | 300 |
Source: Search on Air Canada website for a normal week in mid-November.
Air India gets a leg up
This also means that Air India with its 21 weekly flights, now just one less than Air Canada, will end up offering more seats than Air Canada with 7182 weekly seats each way. The operation will see twice daily to Toronto and once a day service to Vancouver.
| Flt No | Dep S | Arr S | Dep T | Arr T | Freq | Eqpt | Seats |
| AI185 | DEL | YVR | 05:15 | 06:30 | Daily | 77W | 342 |
| AI187 | DEL | YYZ | 02:55 | 07:45 | Daily | 77W | 342 |
| AI189 | DEL | YYZ | 15:15 | 19:35 | Daily | 77W | 342 |
| AI186 | YVR | DEL | 10:00 | 14:30 | Daily | 77W | 342 |
| AI190 | YYZ | DEL | 00:10 | 00:35 | Daily | 77W | 342 |
| AI188 | YYZ | DEL | 11:55 | 12:00 | Daily | 77W | 342 |
Source: Search on Air India’s website for a normal week in mid-November.
Snippet from the blog about Air Canada’s India expansion published on June 03
Network Thoughts
Air India’s entry has been on expected lines for airline network watchers. Delhi has a slightly shorter flight to Canada than Mumbai, and it helps to strengthen Delhi operations instead of spreading the flights to Mumbai, for better utilisation and the larger market being in the Northern parts of India, with a large population spending the harsher Canadian winter months in India and moving back to Canada for harsher summer of India.
Air India has avoided the cost of launching a new station (Montreal) and relied on tried and tested northern feed to add flights to Toronto. What could have been the other option? With the airline adding capacity to Toronto with 3 more flights starting September, it would have been possible to use the same fleet size to operate 4x weekly to Toronto and thrice a week addition to Vancouver – which is a monopoly route. However, it makes sense to add capacity on a route which has competition to fight it rather than add flights on a monopoly route where it can push the yields higher due to lack of competition.
Additionally, the second flight opens up better connection opportunities for certain points in Middle east and ASEAN, which makes sense to offer Daily flights rather than split between two destinations.
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