Originally Posted by
eigenvector
The future for any Eastern Canada TATL route without heavy premium traffic is likely the 737 MAX.
As for YYC NRT, if AC does get rid of this route or switch it to seasonal, I wonder if they will give up the slot at NRT or add another flight from YYZ or YVR.
For YYC-NRT, I don't think the route is cancelled outright, buth with the pending 763 mainline retirement, the route is simply reverting back to summer-seasonal only, which is too far out to be loaded yet for summer 2019.
As for YOW-LHR/FRA, there's too much government traffic J demand for those routes to be MAXed to offer only a Y+ (domestic J) product, plus I doubt that YOW-FRA is even within 7M8 range. I'd imagine these will go 788 as a) the capacity increase could easily be absorbed and is quite frankly long overdue at YOW, and b) it's easy to continue rotating the widebody on a Rapidair...where the demand is needed in the evening peak as it is. While the 788 may not be optimized distance wise for YOW-LHR/FRA, the it is the optimal aircraft size for YOW. The fact that AC are using the 788 on YUL-FRA this summer shows there is a precedent for its usage on such stage lengths. I doubt YOW-LHR/FRA will go 333 given the lack of a YYZ 333 crew base = harder to rotate aircraft + a bigger capacity jump.
YOW might get a 7M8 transatlantic route on AC eventually, with a summer seasonal YOW-CDG being the most likely.