In addition to its new Bangkok service, Air Canada also announced it would serve Mumbai, India. But rather than fly nonstop from Toronto, the flight will stop in London in each direction, offering a cool new Fifth Freedom route.
Air Canada Adds Fifth Freedom Flight Between London And Mumbai
With the utilization of Russian airspace still off-limits and unlikely to open in the months ahead, Air Canada will operate its Toronto (YYZ) – Mumbai (BOM) service via London Heathrow (LHR). London is a major airport for Star Alliance, Air Canada has a beautiful lounge there, and demand for traffic between the United Kingdom and India is strong.
Mark Galardo, Air Canada’s Senior Vice President of Network Planning and Revenue Management explained:
“We are also excited to return to Mumbai, India’s largest city and an important financial, commercial, and entertainment hub, complementing our 13 weekly flights from Canada to Delhi. Our Mumbai services are scheduled to operate with a stop in London Heathrow, offering connectivity to more than a dozen Air Canada and Star Alliance partner United Airlines flights between North America and London, as well as additional options for travel between the UK and India. The India market remains very important to Air Canada, and we are committed to resuming our currently paused non-stop services on Toronto–Mumbai and Vancouver–Delhi when circumstances allow.”
The new service will utilize a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner, featuring:
- 30 Signature (Business) Class suites
- 21 Premium Economy seats
- 247 Economy Class seats
The route will operate daily according to the following schedule:
- A856
- departs Toronto (YYZ) 8:30PM – arrives London (LHR) 8:30AM+1
- departs London (LHR) 11:10AM – arrives Mumbai (BOM) 1:40AM+2
- AC855
- departs Mumbai (BOM) 4:50AM – arrives London (LHR) 9:20AM
- departs London (LHR) 12:00PM – arrives Toronto (YYZ) 2:55PM
Eastbound service begins on October 29, 2022 while westbound service begins on October 31, 2022.
Although the Fifth Freedom flights are not yet for sale, and Air Canada spokesperson confirmed to Live and Let’s Fly that tickets between London and Mumbai will be sold separately. You can already buy tickets on these new flights between Toronto and Mumbai.
CONCLUSION
Air Canada is creatively adding a new service to Mumbai with a stop in London, addressing the constraints of the Russian airspace closure. The new daily route will begin in late October. Fifth Freedom flights between London and Mumbai are not yet bookable, but will be soon.
Air Canada once offered Fifth Freedom service from Buenos Aires, Argentina (EZE) to Santiago, Chile (SCL), but currently does not offer any Fifth Freedom routes.
Why does the plane spend close to 3 hrs in LHR? Surely that’s quite inconvenient for those who are flying direct to BOM from YYZ and makes the whole point of flying AC (for a quicker experience) redundant…
And even though a “direct” flight there will certainly be a crew change and cleaning, so this really isn’t about the direct service, it seems.
Air Canada does not fly between EZE and SCL
Now AC 92 flies only to SCL and AC 90
Only to EZE.
You’re right, it’s a triangle route.
This isn’t just a tech stop on a short tag. Customers can book AC856 as YYZ-LHR, YYZ-BOM, or LHR-BOM. They can also connect from/to other flights. LHR-BOM is also a long-haul flight in and of itself. All that means the plane needs a complete cleaning, baggage off-loading/loading, crew change, re-fueling, etc. The allotted time of 3 hours is about what it takes to do a complete turn on an international flight like that.
Why do they need almost 3 hours on the ground in London? Plus, lately, AC began padding their schedule “Delta Style”, meaning that it’ll probably be more time on the ground.
In current times, 3 hours on the ground is the minimum I’m willing to risk on a layover. We’re seeing a global airline meltdown never seen before.
Agreed about the 3 hours minimum when connecting, but in this case, I tend to belive that passengers that are flying all the way YYZ-BOM can just stay on board.
AC is definitely NOT padding their schedule like DL does. If they did, their on-time performance wouldn’t be so horrible.
The point of the 3 hour layover is to clean/swap crew, but also wait for any other Air Canada and United flight from North America to land in London and connect onto the BOM flight. With 5th freedom, every UA and AC hub gets one stop connection to BOM (ensuring full flights) while at the same time solving the limitation of the runway and max fuel weight when leaving BOM. This problem made the BOM flights impossible with the rerouting of flights due to the closure of Russian airspace.
For passengers to/from India, it would be better if there were just a quick technical stop in Shannon. Refuel and go.
You might cut an hour off the ops. But in the end, you are not selling any seats. With Russia airspace closed airlines are harking back to the 80’s when they did this in many markets. the key is to find routes that work with the ability to actually sell seats from the stopover city and not make the stopover just a technical one…that would be going back to the 1950’s and makes no sense today.
The stop over is kinda strange and everyone get’s off the plane, I flew the freedom flight from Toronto to SCL to EZE. Basically it’s enough time walk around the terminal and get a snack. I was pretty jet lagged when I arrived in Buenos Aires.
I suspect that the closure of Russian airspace to western airlines has a lot to do with this. AC would have to fly a significantly longer routing anyhow, so with this plan they’re trying to make the best of it. And, before you say how doing a different and quicker stop would be better, remember that Indian airlines (such as AI) still utilize Russian airspace and fly nonstop to Canada and the USA in the same shorter flight time. So, AC can’t directly compete with that. But they can provide a tidier aircraft with professional service and….if that’s not enough, they can try to compete in the London-Mumbai market as the only Star Alliance member to fly the route.
So, it makes some sense.
I’m sure there’s a lot of loyal AC elite members with family in both London and Mumbai. This route makes a lot of sense to me.
I’m guessing continuing passengers will need to be security screened in London.
Will there be a UA codeshare on the LHR-BOM segment?
Brilliant! Just in time for my next trip to Mumbai! 🙂
Brilliant. Just stay there haha
Air Canada used to run this route back in the 80s using L1011s and B747-200s with a further tag leg onwards to Singapore (YYZ-LHR-BOM-SIN). The route ran from 1985 to 1991 give or take if my memory serves me right.
I really wish you would do a blog, @Sean. You really do have a wealth of insight and a unique perspective into the industry. Always enjoy your comments across the blogs.
Used to love all the fifth freedom fights between EZE and SCL (since was mentioned). LH used to have one on a 747-400 that I used a few times back in the 90’s. You could snag LH First for like $200 one way.
“london is a major airport for star alliance”
What?!
half of transatlantic are oneworld
another percent of delta and virgin
united is nothing there
(okay lufthansa group flies a million stupid cityline planes there everyday)
but that dont make it a hub
i know you like star alliance but keep your eyes open
London is not Frankfurt, but London has a huge presence of Star carriers.
I say that as someone who greatly prefers to fly oneworld out of LHR due to the superior lounges.
AC currently DOES have a 5th freedom route even though it axed SCL-EZE. They have GRU-EZE in place of that.
Inefficient, 3 hours is just too much and knowing Air Canada they’ll have other excuses to further delays like crew didn’t show up, lost baggage, issues with cleaning services, etc