Air Canada prepares to (re)conquer Milan: direct flight to Montreal

Canada's borders are expected to reopen to Europeans next Sept. 7, the date was announced in July now we just have to wait for confirmation. In the meantime, Canada's flag carrier is preparing to reignite routes between North America and Europe, where it currently flies to 17 destinations.

Sales have been open for a few days for the flight from Montreal that will connect Quebec's largest city with Milan. The 6,112-km flight between Montreal Pierre Elliott Trudeau and Milan Malpensa is scheduled to depart on May 20. The connection will be operated with Airbus A330-300s, equipped with 32 business class, 24 premium economy and 241 economy seats.

There are currently two non-stop routes between Canada and Italy, connecting Rome Fiumicino with Toronto four times a week and Montreal. Given the absence in ITA's plans with connections to Canada, the Star Alliance carrier hopes to intercept the bulk of passenger traffic that prefers direct connections to stopovers.

Connections between Italy and Canada are particularly busy in the summer season, but also during the rest of the year due to the large community of Italian-Canadians right in the Toronto area. Overall traffic between Canada and Milan totaled 160,267 round-trip passengers in 2019, with Toronto-Milan the largest city pair representing 61% of the market.

Also in the company's intentions is the desire to reactivate connections with Venice and the other flight from Malpensa to Toronto. The route between Toronto and Milan was launched in June 2014, becoming the only non-stop service from Canada to the Lombard provincial capital. The defunct airline Air Italy also operated YYZ-MXP service in 2019, but the last Air Canada and Air Italy flights on the route took place in October of that year.

• New Routes