Delhi-Vancouver on Air Canada
Duncan Bureau, Vice President, Global Sales, Air Canada, in an exclusive with shares details about the upcoming Delhi-Vancouver only non-stop flight and what it entails for the Indian traveller.
Recently, we announced the only non-stop flights between Delhi and Vancouver starting October 20, 2016. The non-stop service is seasonal, and will operate three times weekly on Monday, Thursday and Saturday from Delhi. The new service nicely complements Air Canada’s Delhi-Toronto non-stop service launched last fall. The flight will be operated by Air Canada’s state-of-the-art Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft featuring 30 international Businesss Class lieflat pod suites, 21 Premium Economy and 247 Economy Class seats with upgraded inflight entertainment at every seat throughout the aircraft.
We have seen positive customer response to our Delhi-Toronto service and this new seasonal Vancouver route. We are strategically increasing our presence in the important Asia-Pacific market. This flight offers customers travelling to India more choice. We believe in the fact that our non-stop Dreamliner flights to our Vancouver hub will also offer the shortest elapsed flying time to other cities across Western Canada and USA (Calgary, Edmonton, Seattle, Portland and Los Angeles) is of tremendous value to customers who are doing business in either Canada or Delhi.
The numbers tell the story and it is really a great story. I would like to quote our President and Chief Executive Officer, Calin Rovinescu, “In 2015, we achieved the best financial results in Air Canada’s history for a second year in a row, by a substantial margin, underscoring the effectiveness of our business strategy and enhanced competitive position. Our results reflect the significant progress being achieved through our various value-enhancing initiatives, including fleet modernisation, international expansion, roll-out of rouge and our network diversification.” What are the plans for this year? At this time we are focused on launching a number of new routes that we had announced last fall. This summer we are getting ready to launch non-stop service from Canada to Prague, Budapest, Warsaw, Lyon, Bris- bane, Glasgow and Casablanca to name just a few.
The sales team based in Delhi has been very active with the local trade and from the reports, our local agency partners are thrilled about the new non-stop service into Vancouver. The local team is driving a number of initiatives with our partners with a focus on Corporate, VFR and MICE business. The team is also working with Destination Canada to focus on Vancouver as a destination in upcoming roadshows and training for the frontline agencies. Travel agents are incredibly important partners to our business. Not only do they drive a significant portion of the revenues we generate but also drive higher yielding revenue. We count on them as an extension of our sales team that can of course help sell our product and our unique selling points to our customers. I thank the trade for their support.