Air Canada Business Class Award Seats To Delhi & Dubai

As I wrote about last week, Air Canada is launching some exciting new Boeing 787 routes next November.

Air Canada will launch nonstop 4x weekly Boeing 787 flights between Toronto and Delhi as of November 1, 2015. The flight will operate with the following schedule:

AC50 Toronto to Delhi departing 8:55PM arriving 9:15PM (+1 day)
AC51 Delhi to Toronto departing 12:45AM arriving 5:00AM

Air Canada will also launch nonstop 3x weekly Boeing 787 flights between Toronto and Dubai as of November 3, 2015. The flight will operate with the following schedule:

AC56 Toronto to Dubai departing 8:55PM arriving 6:40PM (+1 day)
AC57 Dubai to Toronto departing 11:55PM arriving 5:00AM (+1 day)

These new routes are exciting for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that Air Canada’s 787s feature their best hard product, consisting of reverse herringbone seats.

Air Canada 787 business class

Anyway, while the routes were officially announced last week, tickets for the new flights didn’t go on sale until this week.

I figured I’d provide an update now that the flights have been loaded into the GDS. Per the ANA tool, award availability on the new Air Canada 787 routes is excellent, including on the inaugural flights. Most flights have two business class award seats available:

The catch is that award space is typically only bookable ~11 months out, so as of now the booking window is only open through mid-November.

If the award trends on this flight continue, this will be a great option for holiday travel next year.

In terms of the best ways to redeem miles for these flights, keep in mind that:

• Air Canada’s Aeroplan imposes fuel surcharges for award travel on Air Canada
• United MileagePlus has a more expensive award chart for travel on partner airlines
• Avianca LifeMiles is a pretty good option, given the lack of fuel surcharges

So, who’s booking one of Air Canada’s new 787 routes?