Air Canada has introduced a new Toronto to Mumbai flight which will be a fifth freedom flight with a layover at London’s Heathrow airport. A fifth freedom flight is that flight that flies from a base in another country than the home country. The flight marks its return to the airport pairs after about 31 years. The flight was operated last nearly 30 years ago as part of Air Canada’s longer routing. The flight runs daily and is a part of a broader flights to India from Canada group.
The launch of the flight with a layover in London comes as Air Canada is keen to grow and explore the Indian market. The flight was initially designed as a direct Toronto to London route without a stop, with the aim of targeting Canada’s largest unserved Indian market. However, circumstances did not permit this due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, which resulted in airlines having to avoid the Russian-Ukrainian airspace. It is currently unclear whether the layover in London will be a temporary or permanent arrangement.
On October 30, Air Canada initiated a flight from Toronto to Mumbai, which involves a ground time of 2 hours and 40 minutes in the UK. The scheduled travel time for flights from Toronto to Mumbai is approximately 18 hours and 25 minutes going and 20 hours and 40 minutes returning. Air Canada believes the option is not the quickest one but definitely competitive. Advantageously, it has fifth freedom traffic rights between London and Mumbai.
The flight schedule is as follows
- Toronto to London: AC 856, 7 hours block time
- London to Mumbai: AC 856, 8 hours and 45 minutes
- Mumbai to London: AC 855, 10 hours and 5 minutes
- London to Toronto: AC 855, 7 hours and 55 minutes
Air canada has reserved a 298 seater 787-9s primary widebody aircraft for the 13000 km route of flights to India from Canada. There are about 247 seats in regular economy and 21 recliner seats in premium economy and if business class deals interest you then for your information it has 30 fully flat seats in signature class.
The booking data shows 134000 roundtrip passengers on the Mumbai-Toronto route in 2019 and Air Canada’s motive is to tap into this unserved and underserved market through its one layover new flight. It was small in comparison to the Toronto-Delhi route, which had over 482,000 roundtrip passengers. In the case of London to Mumbai, there were a total of 529,000 passengers who strongly favored the non-stop service. Therefore, Air Canada made the strategic decision to introduce a layover at Heathrow airport in London. Heathrow is not only London’s busiest airport but also Mumbai’s largest P2P international market by passengers, second only to Dubai.
There are now over 7 flights to India from Canada run by the carrier Air Canada.
