Singapore will see the return of Air Canada after more than 30 years with nonstop flights from Vancouver International Airport beginning in April 2024.
Air Canada is returning to Singapore after more than 30 years, while Virgin Atlantic is planning to make its long-awaited debut in South America and Turkish Airlines is further expanding its footprint in North America.
Vancouver-Singapore
Air Canada plans to expand its Asia network by introducing nonstop flights between Vancouver International Airport (YVR) and Singapore’s Changi International Airport (SIN), marking a return to the Singapore market after a hiatus of more than three decades.
The airline will replace Star Alliance partner Singapore Airlines (SIA) on the route, which began serving the cities nonstop in December 2021 but is scheduled to suspend flights in September. Singapore Airlines currently offers three round trips per week.
Service from YVR will be from April 3, 2024, on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, departing at 12:15 a.m. aboard Boeing 787s. The return from SIN will leave at 9:10 a.m. on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays.
The schedule has been built to offer connections to and from destinations across North America via Air Canada’s hub at YVR and, at SIN, to and from destinations across Southeast Asia, South India and Western Australia with codeshare partner SIA.
At 12,807 km (6,915 nm), the ultra-long-haul route will become the farthest in Air Canada’s network by distance, surpassing Vancouver-Sydney by 314 km (170 nm). It will also become the sole nonstop connection between Canada and Singapore.
SIA’s resumption of operations to Canada two-and-a-half years ago ended an absence of more than a decade without nonstop flights between the two countries. The airline previously operated a 3X-weekly route to Vancouver via Seoul until April 2009.
The carrier returned to the Canadian market in December 2021 after a 12-year absence by adding a Vancouver stop on its existing Singapore-Seattle route. Service between Singapore and Vancouver then became nonstop in June 2022.
According to Sabre Market Intelligence, O&D traffic between Canada and Singapore totaled 72,000 two-way passengers during 2022, with Vancouver-Singapore accounting for 47% of the traffic.
Although SIN is dropping Vancouver from its network, it will continue to serve five destinations in North America, flying to Los Angeles, New York John F. Kennedy, Newark, San Francisco, and Seattle-Tacoma. United Airlines also serves San Francisco-Singapore.
London Heathrow-São Paulo
Virgin Atlantic will make its South American debut during the summer 2024 season, four years later than originally planned. Flights to São Paulo’s Guarulhos International Airport (GRU) will begin on May 13, 2024, operating daily using Boeing 787-9s.
The airline initially announced its intention to begin serving the Brazilian city from London Heathrow (LHR) in September 2019, targeting a March 2020 launch. However, the start of the planned 9,460-km (5,878-nm) route was halted indefinitely following the onset of the pandemic.
Two carriers serve the London-São Paulo market at present, with British Airways (BA) offering daily Airbus A350-1000 fights and LATAM Airlines Group providing daily service using 777-300s. In total, there are about 10,300 two-way nonstop seats between the cities, and LATAM has a 55% share.
Virgin Atlantic announced a codeshare partnership with LATAM in January 2022 as the Chile-headquartered group moved closer to Delta Air Lines and its partners, Virgin Atlantic and Aeromexico. The agreement covers LATAM’s LHR-GRU service, alongside onward connections to 12 domestic airports in Brazil.
Sabre data shows that point-to-point traffic from London Heathrow to São Paulo Guarulhos amounted to 86,790 passengers in 2022. A further 73,322 passengers traveled to destinations beyond São Paulo, while 49,117 passengers flew to São Paulo from points behind the UK airport. Bridge traffic—travelers starting their journey from behind LHR and flying onward from GRU—totaled some 30,916 passengers.
As well as targeting leisure traffic, Virgin Atlantic hopes São Paulo will be a popular cargo route. Trade between the UK and Brazil amounted to about £7.7 billion ($9.6 billion) in 2022, according to UK government figures. The airline expects to carry regular shipments of car parts, pharmaceuticals, food and agricultural products.
Istanbul-Detroit
Turkish Airlines is further expanding its US network during the northern winter 2023-24 season with the launch of a new route to Detroit.
Starting on Nov. 15, the Star Alliance member intends to offer three flights a week to Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (DTW) from its Istanbul Airport (IST) hub. Service will be on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays using 787-9s.
The US has been a major growth market for Turkish since the pandemic, with the carrier adding capacity to existing points and launching routes to Newark in May 2021, Dallas-Fort Worth in September 2021 and Seattle in June 2022.
According to data provided by OAG Schedules Analyser, Turkish serves 12 US cities and offers about 83,100 two-way Turkey-US weekly seats. This compares with 10 destinations and 47,900 two-way seats during summer 2019. The figures show that the US is now the airline’s third-biggest international market by capacity, behind Germany and Russia.
Meanwhile, Detroit has 10 nonstop connections to cities in Europe at present. Delta Air Lines serves seven markets, flying to Amsterdam, Frankfurt, London Heathrow, Munich, Paris Charles de Gaulle, Reykjavik Keflavik and Rome Fiumicino. Air France also serves DTW from Paris; Lufthansa from Frankfurt; and Icelandair from Reykjavik.
Although Detroit is not a Star Alliance hub, Turkish Airlines will be targeting flows transfer traffic, primarily to Arabic-speaking destinations it serves in the Middle East and Africa. According to a study of US Census data by the PEW Research Center in Washington DC, the Detroit region has the most Arabic speakers of any US metropolitan area. It said there are more than 190,000 people in the area who speak Arabic, representing 13% of all Arabic speakers in the US.
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