Lots of Canadians do it for US or Mexico flights.

Otherwise it would be a bit crazy to return on a 12-hour long haul flight and then drive 3+ hours (including another passport control / customs) to get home...

Apart from the passport control/customs, it's not much of a difference for people living in Yorkshire to fly into LHR and take a train/coach or drive home. My university was between MAN and BHX but flights to LHR was a lot cheaper so I was flying into LHR after a 13h flight and took a coach for 3,5h then a bus back to my dorm.

Quite some Swedes use CPH to fly out (we used to do the same), and a 2+ hours drive is not uncommon. Sweden has introduced border control since 2017 from DK (it's amazing how countries can just ignore Schengen treaty), waiting by the bridge is not uncommon anymore (they check passports, random scan cars with SE licence plate, random scan of foreign passport - just experienced this today, sometimes the customs are also there looking for particular things). I wonder how bad it is with border crossing between the US and Canada, I know people said don't cross to the US around Niagara falls, no idea about what's like between Vancouver and Seattle.

Hopefully I can try the new route soon as I really don't mind seeing Vancouver (let's see when the world is normal again).

Huh? SEA not big? Seattle/SEA sees more passengers each year than Toronto/YYZ, and nearly twice as many as Vancouver/YVR. And that's in a normal year. Today, with Canada in a virtual paranoid lockdown and the US back to normal, I suspect that SEA currently sees more passengers than every Canadian airport combined.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...e549e2d250.png
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...578725ee1f.png

How come IAH is not on the list? What about IAD? I normally fly into the bigger airports from Europe to the US like LAX, SFO, IAH, DFW, IAD, so compared to those I found SEA similar to DEN.

IAH is #15, IAD is #25. Research is your friend. ;)
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...5e33ae08d7.png
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...5b0127fff6.png

Guys, we all know that IAD covers a lot of diplomatic travel and more transatlantic travel compared to both IAH and SEA.
IAH is United's center-US hub, thus, it's highly normal that there are more flights in total from IAH. Same reason for DFW and ATL to be on top of the list, central-American hub of the AA and DL

Also, I think that we all know that the Canadian government is stingy in giving slots to foreign carriers to protect their wonderful Air Canada. In the USA, there are no similar restrictions like that.

Expect more protection for AC now that the government owns about 14% plus has warrants to buy a lot more shares at a price not much more than current market prices thanks to the bailout. Anyway this thread is going off point re the route launch.

While I welcome any new non-AC service into Canada, I am puzzled by the timing of this launch. Yes, there is light in sight at the end of the Covid-19 tunnel, but for now Canada's extremely onerous quarantine rules still make intl. travel virtually impossible. And there is no clear end date for this, amidst hysterical public discourse in Canada.

I wonder why TK didn't wait with the launch until the quarantine requirement is dropped? Does cargo alone pay for the flights? Is there a "use it or lose it" clause in the traffic rights? Curious.

Over the last decade Canada has made it almost impossible for airlines like TK, and the ME3 to get additional cities and/or frequencies. TK has been trying to get this route for a very long time. I would assume that if they do not start by a certain date that they will lose it, and who knows when they will get it back, so they are going for it, and hoping that in the next 6. 12. 18 months or whatever that the situation changes. I would also think that TK knows that there is a good amount of connecting traffic from all sorts of countries that would like this additional option to Vancouver (you know, like the subcontinent, africa middle east and eastern europe).

Now if only QR starts flying to YVR...one can only dream!

I have a feeling that most passengers on this flight will be travelling to/from the Indian subcontinent.

This flight seems to be just in time for west coast Canadians in India who need to return to Canada as the Canadian government has suspended direct flights to/from India. The only catch is that they will need to enter Turkey to get another PCR test (and perhaps quarantine for 14 days? not sure if they can leave Turkey of staying less than 14 days) before continuing their journey to Canada (and doing a 3 day hotel quarantine in YVR [as opposed to YYZ if they flew EK] and another 13 days at home). As EK and QR does not fly to YVR, this means one less stop.

Flights from Turkey to India are suspended at the moment.
TK temporarily doesn't operate their DEL and BOM routes.

According to Airporthaber;

The inaugural IST-YVR had 167 passengers and the return leg ( YVR-IST ) has 157 passengers with the majority of passengers in both flights being transfer passengers.
With Canada having a hotel quarantine for arrivals, the demand for this route looks pretty good at this time.

Flying IST YVR on May 9th, can't wait!

Does anyone know what lounge TK uses at YVR?