New VS route coming in 2025 - Heathrow to Toronto

[mitchja]

Just received this via VS Trade:

We’re pleased to be launching a brand-new route between London Heathrow and Toronto Pearson International Airport for 2025.

Offering something for everyone, business-seekers, game-day supporters and coffee-lovers alike, our daily flights take off from 30th March 2025 on our A330 and A330neo aircraft. Iconic onboard social space, wireless charging, and stylish design touches make the 7 hour 50 minute journey even smoother.

Flights are on sale from Saturday 19th June.

VS did briefly fly LGW>YYZ (Toronto) back in 2001 for just a few months, however, it was cancelled after 9/11.

A very interesting development. This will also be the third attempt by VS to enter the UK-Canada market after the termination of their YVR route a number of years ago, so you'd think/hope they have learnt lessons.

My take is that VS are entering a market that isn't exactly short on capacity. BA operate up to two flights a day on their A350s and Air Canada operate up to four flights per day on a mixture of 777s and 787s. Air Transat also serve LGW from YYZ and WestJet operate to both LHR and LGW from other Canadian airports. From the regions, MAN-YYZ is year-round with Air Transat (although not daily) and seasonally by AC. GLA-YYZ is covered by Air Transat, whereas EDI-YYZ is seasonally served by both AC and WestJet.

Note however that one of these AC flights continues on from LHR to Mumbai and there's a Calgary-LHR flight continuing on to Delhi later this year, so depending on timings I wonder if VS are trying to tap into the India-Canada market for which there is quite a bit of demand given the large Indian diaspora in Canada and with them now flying to three Indian destinations?

Further to this, there's also this announcement of VS entering into a codeshare agreement with WestJet. This will help fill the flights from the YYZ end, though WestJet's presence in YYZ is not as big as AC's compared to WestJet's home base of Calgary,. On the flip side, WestJet operate YYC-LHR which should, in turn, also help fill VS' eastbound/southbound flights from LHR...

https://www.westjet.com/en-ca/news/2024 ... 3A20240610

Note however that one of these AC flights continues on from LHR to Mumbai and there's a Calgary-LHR flight continuing on to Delhi later this year, so depending on timings I wonder if VS are trying to tap into the India-Canada market for which there is quite a bit of demand given the large Indian diaspora in Canada and with them now flying to three Indian destinations?

This is exactly what they are doing.

VS is doing well on the BOM-LHR route and are adding a second daily flight from October.

Toronto is the 8th largest Indian community outside of India so there is a lot of demand.

In the press release it states "... from 30th March 2025 on our A330 and A330neo aircraft. Iconic onboard social space, wireless charging..."

I have not noticed wireless charging facility on the regular A330's. Is the statement an error?

[mitchja]

Wireless charging is only available on the A339's in Upper Class and Premium (and even then you have to remove handset cases to get it to work at lot of the time)