Air Canada’s route network to Asia keeps becoming more impressive, and the airline has just announced its latest destination.
Air Canada adds Manila flights in April 2025
As of April 2, 2025, Air Canada will launch a new 4x weekly, year-round flight between Vancouver (YVR) and Manila (MNL). The route will operate with the following schedule:
AC17 Vancouver to Manila departing 1:55AM arriving 6:20AM (+1 day)
AC18 Manila to Vancouver departing 9:25AM arriving 6:20AM
The service will operate westbound on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays, and eastbound on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. The 6,567-mile flight is blocked at 13hr25min westbound and 11hr35min eastbound.
Air Canada will use a Boeing 787-9 for this service, featuring 298 seats. This includes 30 business class seats, 21 premium economy seats, and 247 economy seats.
Here’s how Air Canada’s EVP of Revenue and Network Planning, Mark Galardo, describes the new route:
“We are thrilled to add Manila to our global network with new, year-round, non-stop service from Vancouver, Air Canada’s Pacific gateway hub. We continue to pursue our international network strategy of expanding to large, fast-growing markets that are presently unserved directly by Air Canada. The Philippines is an important market reflecting longstanding family ties between our two countries with growing business connections and tourism opportunities. With an extensive domestic and transborder network in Vancouver designed to connect seamlessly to our international flights, we are making travel between North America and the Philippines even more convenient for leisure and business travellers alike. It is with great excitement that we look forward to welcoming our customers onboard next spring.”
My take on Air Canada’s new flight to Manila
It’s really cool to see how Air Canada is continuing to expand into Asia. Among North American airlines, United has historically been in a league of its own when it comes to expanding deeper into Asia, as it’s an area where American and Delta are barely competing. Air Canada is really getting into United’s league, though.
In the past couple of years, we’ve seen Air Canada also add flights from Vancouver to Bangkok (BKK) and Singapore (SIN), so that’s some really cool expansion. Speaking of United, in late 2023 we saw the carrier add a route to Manila out of San Francisco (SFO), which was otherwise the only nonstop flight on a US carrier from the mainland to Manila.
Philippine Airlines also operates the Vancouver to Manila route, so the two carriers will be competing head-to-head. Obviously Air Canada has the advantage when it comes to connectivity within the Americas, while Philippine Airlines has the advantage when it comes to connectivity within Asia.
Air Canada shares that Manila is currently the largest market in Asia that’s not served directly by Air Canada. The Philippines isn’t the highest yielding market in the world, but I guess between high demand an fuel efficient aircraft, the economics for such a route can work nowadays.
Bottom line
Air Canada will be launching a new 4x weekly flight between Vancouver and Manila as of April 2025. This will be Air Canada’s third new route to Southeast Asia in the past couple of years, following new service to Bangkok and Singapore. I’m very impressed by how Air Canada’s long haul network is continuing to grow.
What do you make of Air Canada’s new Manila service?
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