Air Canada will fly its A321XLR between Montreal and Seville from September 2027, skipping peak summer heat and the dead of winter in an unusual seasonal schedule.
Everyone: Europe is cold in the winter. Canada: Hold my beer while I pack my swim trunks!
Seville is nice. I’m gonna geek out for a moment… Plaza de España is film site for the palace on Naboo in Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002).
Those "business class" seats look like very narrow slots. No thanks.
Dick, fortunately nobody will force you to fly them. You’ll still have the option on every alliance to take a widebody to an alliance hub, land and feel miserable at what feels like the middle of the night, then wait a few hours for a “Euro business” economy seat for your flight to Sevilla.
There are plenty of people who will prefer a premium seat nonstop to their destination.
Something for everyone.
I think it's pretty interesting that AC doesn't fly YUL-SAN in winter. But I'd rather go to Sevilla too
The stupidity of Air Canada first NO Premium Economy, next flying from Montreal instead of Toronto where the passengers are. Next the first 6 321xlr were ordered with the WRONG engines for a budget airline with the plane slammed with seats.
I wonder has the break in the height of summer to do with the A321's lousy takeoff performance in high temperatures. For a transatlantic flight and high takeoff weights, it would make sense that it might not be worth the risk of having to consistently block half of the seats in order to reach an acceptable takeoff performance weight.
I’m a bit surprised UA/AA (maybe even DL?) don’t try to do more winter seasonal flying to ski resorts (eg, Newark/Philadelphia/JFK to Lyon). Obviously that would be a very leisure oriented route, but as often covered here and in other blogs, leisure travelers are frequently paying premiums to travel in comfort these days. I would think such routes could work in winter.
Agree fully. There's plenty of demand from the luxe leisure crowd for ski vacations in Europe. Why just focus on summer leisure travel?
A potentially interesting comparison, Qantas operates seasonal ski-season flights to Sapporo. There is apparently demand for ski trips at the height of [southern] summer (5x weekly, A330-200, 11 hours block time).
It's my lucky day. Hello world, goodbye Columbus.
Well - it is smart idea. It’s Andalusia/Andaluz - in winter it is still warm - it’s well connected to Malaga, Cordoba, Granada, Alhambra, Marbella or Jerez (Sherry) etc. - so a great base to use the high speed train or rent a car and doing great day tours. I would not go in summer again but for winter it is a perfect place to have moderate temperature. Great place to enjoy food.
I agree. Unless you have to follow the traditional school year because of kids, being a student or work at a school, I don’t understand the appeal to always travel during the summer season especially to Europe. It’s hot and crowded. Spent winters in Spain, Croatia and Greece and it was mild, sunny and half the crowds. Not to mention if you’re flying out of the East Coast and the Midwest, the entire ATC system collapses from one rain drop.
A super development! I've travelled from Toronto to the Andalusian region twice over the last few years in late Sept/early Oct - arguably one of the best times of the year to visit Seville, with daytime highs approaching 30 Celsius, and little of that region's oppressive mid-summer heat. Can't wait to try the A321XLR's cool business class seat...
Certainly a cool route and no shade intended, but this has “burning cash” written all over it
Am I missing something or is there no natural winter draw to SVQ? No snow. No mountains. No warm beaches.
I guess AC truly can run out of random Mexican runways in winter (lord knows they’re at every single runway with a beach nearby) but I don’t really understand the draw to svq in February and march?
No mountains and no snow? You’ve got both nearby, especially mountains and hiking trails. If you want snow you can drive to Sierra Nevada or take a train to Granada and go on the bus later… Beaches (although not warm, I agree) under 1.5h by car… Still believe it’s “burning cash”?
Ahhh yes.
The world famous snow skiing of Seville, Spain
Enough to lure even Canadians in winter
Cmon now. You know what I meant 😉
And yes. I still think it’s burning cash. Many hub to hub routes in winter lose money in winter and somehow YUL-SVQ is going to work?
I mean if Canadians are travelling to Spain to ski, they really should be looking to travel elsewhere… If you want to got to the only ski destination in Southern Spain you can definitely use SVQ or AGP with TS, it definitely is nowhere near like those Swiss and Italian ski resorts…
Btw, isn’t YYZ-FAO burning cash too in winter? Cold beaches, cold weather, and dead towns? Still Air Transar flies there…
The route is interesting. But from YUL the best nonstops are on Air Transat. While their Club class is better than domestic first, it ain't like flat. But we get 3 Club tickets for the price of one on AC or AF to France on a nonstop.
Has anyone writing here actually been to Andalucia in the Spanish winter? While it may be hot in summer, the weather is not really nice between November and March and I don’t see the appeal to travel to mainland Spain (or the Balearic isles) in this season. Most of the time, it would not even be warm enough to use an outdoor pool during that period and most hotels close them anyway.
I fail to see how this route is “brilliantly thought out” completely.
Apart from the Christmas and New Year Season (when the flight does not operate, brilliant!) this is the lowest of the low season in Spain and you get flight tickets on the LCCs from more Northern parts of Europe for less than EUR 100 rtn. and rental cars for next to nothing during this time. It’s very badly thought out, full stop.
Oct-Jan and Mar-June is actually Seville’s high season and hotels definitely don’t close in the city in winter. LCCs flights are usually pretty cheap from SVQ because it’s a strong Ryanair and Vueling base… And coming from a local, trust me that the heat from late April/May to early October is unbearable.
A Hyatt Thompson has recently opened in Seville, with a Kimpton set to open by 2027 and a Four Seasons by 2028; soon, we will likely see United launch a Newark–Seville route, and American Airlines a Miami–Seville route. The cultural and gastronomic tourism is simply wonderful.
It seems like a decent idea if you can easily (nonstop) get to Montréal to connect. If not, it's pretty much not useful as one can connect from many European hubs with a single stop.
Seville in the winter is wonderful. In the summer, it is hell. I’ve been many times
I’m with you, Europe in July and August, only if uncontrolled heat is your kink.
When an airline launches an uncommon route like this, how is their target travel "catchment" audience supposed to know and find out that such routes/seats are available? It's not like the typical person would be searching for Montreal to Seville itineraries. Or would they? Are they relying on travel agents to publicize it? How do secondary destinations get into general knowledge that you can even fly there? Like how do you know that EWR-DBV exists and can buy that ticket? I'm curious to know the mechanism.
The dead of winter in Canada is February (wink). And YUL gets a lot more snow than we get in YYZ.
I think the gap in the schedule lines up with winter festivals in Montreal, which might drop demand to go someplace warmer. Not certain what else to do with the plane though.