Aussies are getting a little more choice when it comes to travelling to Canada, with a new airline codeshare arrangement opening up the The Great White North.
From today, instead of flying direct to Canada on Air Canada’s multiple Sydney, Brisbane and soon Melbourne services, Aussies can book a Virgin Australia flight to Los Angeles, explore the City of Angels, and then connect onwards to three Canadian cities with Air Canada on the same booking.
Sales for the codeshare went live today and include Virgin’s VA code on Air Canada flights from L.A. to Toronto, Montral and Calgary taking off from 1 June this year.
In return, Canadian travellers can fly to Australia on any of Air Canada’s direct services and then book travel on connecting Virgin Australia flights to Adelaide, Canberra, Cairns, Melbourne, Perth, Christchurch and Auckland. They can also secure travel on Virgin Australia services from Sydney to Brisbane, Sydney to the Gold Coast and Brisbane to Wellington.
Virgin Australia Airlines’ Group Executive John Thomas described the new arrangement as an enhancement of the carrier’s network by “offering seamless codeshare connections to three major Canadian cities”.
“This codeshare agreement will make it easier for Australians to visit Canada and for Canadians to explore more of Australia and we are thrilled to be working with a world-class airline in Air Canada.”
John Thomas, Virgin Australia Airlines Group Executive
As part of the strategic cooperation between the airlines, Virgin Australia plans to place its code on Air Canada’s direct flights between Australia and Vancouver in a subsequent stage of the agreement.
Virgin Australia and Air Canada intend to offer reciprocal frequent flyer redemption benefits on each other’s flights in a subsequent stage of the agreement, with further details to be released later in 2017.