Originally Posted by briguychau

YYZ/YUL to SE Asia won't happen on AC metal. YYZ-SIN (for example) is another 1400 miles further than YVR-SIN, and that is if you can overfly Russia; if you fly around Russia it's an additional 400 miles. That's another 3-4 hours longer than YVR-SIN. Even SQ (which can overfly Russia but chooses not to) only flies SIN-JFK/EWR with their A350-900ULR with 0 economy seats. This is not the market AC is chasing after, especially not with the density they put on their frames. The current longest A350-1000 route in the world is PR JFK-MNL (only sometimes, and PR can and does overfly Russia) and QR DOH-LAX (daily, and QR also flies over Russia), which are a similar flight time as YVR-SIN/SYD and DEL-YYZ/YUL. So we're probably looking at ~17 hour block time as the limit for AC's A350-1000s.

By the time the A350-1000 comes I think they will mostly replace the longest ULH routes (possibly the 4 routes mentioned above, which can be flown with 8 frames, possibly 7 frames since YVR-SIN and YUL-DEL are only up to 5 weekly right now), and not as much for network expansion. That should free up 787-9s and 777-200LRs to retire 8 A330s. Theoretically with the 787-10 also arriving just before the A350s, there is some extra capacity in the fleet to possibly do some expansion, but IMO the real ULH expansion will come if/when AC converts their A350 options or orders additional frames.