Air Canada Resuming Ottawa-London Flights, Eyes A321XLRs For Growth

Air Canada plans to resume nonstop service between Ottawa and London starting March 2025 after a five-year hiatus—and sees the potential to deploy Airbus A321XLR aircraft on the route in the future.

Flights connecting Ottawa International Airport (YOW) and London Heathrow Airport (LHR) will restart on March 31, 2025, operating four times per week using Boeing 787 widebody aircraft. The move will restore the airline’s transatlantic flights from the Canadian capital.

Air Canada previously served the Ottawa-London market daily aboard 767-300s during the summer season, dropping to 6X-weekly during the winter months. However, the 3,321-mi. (2,886 nm) route was suspended at the onset of the pandemic in March 2020 and has remained absent from the airline’s network ever since.

Mark Galardo, Air Canada’s EVP of revenue and network planning, emphasized the significance of LHR as a major global gateway and the carrier’s largest international hub. He says passengers will be able to connect to 30 destinations across Europe, the Middle East, India and Africa with its Star Alliance partners.

Galardo adds that the airline will also evaluate the potential to use A321XLRs between YOW and LHR once aircraft deliveries begin in 2025. “The economics, optimum cabin size and range of the XLR, which is expected to begin arriving in late 2025, will enable us to consider operating this important international route with greater frequencies and potentially with year-round service,” Galardo says.

Air Canada has 30 A321XLRs on order, according to the Aviation Week Network Fleet Discovery database. The airline has previously said it plans a 50-50 split between international and North American routes once it scales up the fleet.

Prior to the pandemic, the airline offered a seasonal summer route from YOW to Frankfurt alongside the year-round operations to LHR. Their suspension left Ottawa without nonstop transatlantic flights for more than three years until Air France entered the market in June 2023 with a route from Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport.

Air Canada’s planned resumption of London service comes three months after announcing plans to boost its schedule from Ottawa by almost 60%, with routes to Calgary and Winnipeg now operating year-round, increased capacity to Halifax and Quebec City, and the addition of widebody service to Vancouver. Frequencies have also been added to leisure destinations such as Florida’s Fort Lauderdale, Orlando and Tampa; Cancun, Mexico; and Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, for winter 2025.