I've flown the YYZ-HAN route two times. I am going to do my third trip soon. In the last two trips, I flew into HAN, without stopover in HCMC (SGN). In upcoming trip, I'll travel to HCMC first and then to HAN.

Intuitively there are about a dozen routes for the selection, however, none of them is ideal.

Generally there are four paths from YYZ to SE Asia.

1 AC from YYZ to either NRT or HKG and then connect by an Asian carrier. Due to AC-TG-ANA code share, AC flight matches better with TG and ANA in timing, but not with SQ. Or a UA flight from ORD to NRT or HKG or BKK or SIN. UA is usually cheaper than AC.

2 AC from YYZ to LAX or SFO and then use TG or ANA or SQ or OZ from there. A problem on this route is traveling a longer distance with at least four additional hours in flight time comparing to crossing the Pacific with AC.

3 AC to NYC and then do TG New York Express JFK to BKK ( change airport from LGA to JFK ) or SQ direct from EWR to SIN.

4 AC to LHR ( or whichever European city, but London LHR usually has the best connection ) and then TG to BKK or SQ to SIN.


The difficulty in the YYZ to HAN route include

-- in some routes, a non star alliance connection (VN) is necessary to make it to HAN.

-- if insisting on star alliance all the way, the only viable path is to get to BKK or SIN first and use TG or SQ to fly North to HAN. BKK and SIN are quite a distance South of HAN, henceforth the 2.5 hour flight from BKK to HAN or 4.0 hour flight from SIN to HAN is sort of 'redundant' due to longer flight path.

-- Due to connection timing, a lot of these routes needs an overnight stay somewhere.

-- Layover periods makes things difficult too. Example, connecting in ICN is usually poor in layover period.

-- The Atlantic route to BKK/SIN ( I did it once ) is slightly preferable than the Pacific route because (A) quicker by about 1.5 hour, (B) night flight. However, the Atlantic route costs substantially more than the Pacific route. And again, it is traveling back up North from SIN or BKK to HAN.

-- UA only reaches HCMC, an overnight stay and a VN connection from HCMC to HAN is needed.


The most efficient route in timing and cost is AC from YYZ to PEK ( Beijing ) and then a connecting flight from PEK to HAN by VN. That was a connection to a non-star alliance airline, and indeed there was a slight complication in this connection at PEK airport in my trip taking this route. Nevertheless it got the merit that this is the shortest path and also the quickest -- about 21 hours gate-to-gate. It needs just two flights and it is probably the cheapest in fare.

If crossing the Atlantic and flying TG to BKK, it can be done all in one shot without an overnight stay. I figure it would be around 25 hours form gate to gate.


Don't have high expectation on Executive-First in AC. If you want better travel experience, go for SQ, but you need to absorb higher cost, longer flight path, more time in the air and may be an overnight stopover somewhere.

So there is some compromise to be done. It all depends on what your criterion are.