Air Canada has announced that its competitive leisure carrier subsidiary, Air Canada Rouge will be taking over several of its routes from Montreal and Toronto to Puerto Plata, Samana, Punta Cana and La Romana this spring. The airline will now be serving 28 popular vacation destinations, 22% more than last summer. This growth is greatest from Montreal where there will be in an increase of 36% more seats on these routes and 20% more flights than last summer with the introduction of additional flights to Cancun, Port-au-Prince and Punta Cana.
“Customer response to Air Canada Rouge for vacation travel has been very positive since it started flying just last summer,” said Ben Smith, Air Canada’s executive vice president and chief commercial officer. “The addition of more year-round Caribbean destinations to Air Canada Rouge’s network is the next logical step as our leisure carrier enables us to compete on a more cost-effective basis on these routes while leveraging the strength of Air Canada Vacations.” He added that “Air Canada Rouge’s Caribbean services complement this summer’s significant expansion to new European vacation destinations.”
Air Canada Rouge currently flies to destinations in Europe and the Caribbean, Mexico and the United States.
Air Canada launched the low-cost carrier to hold on to market share in a field crowded with other vacation-oriented carriers such as Transat, Sunwing and WestJet Airlines.
The carrier pays its crews lower wages and benefits than its mainline counterpart and squeezes more seats onto the plane than the regular Air Canada design.