Directs flights from Canada to Algarve until October

  • Lusa
  • 19 January 2022

Air Transat will start weekly flights between Toronto and Faro this Wednesday, in an operation that will last until October 25.

Canadian low-cost airline Air Transat will start weekly flights between Toronto and Faro on Wednesday, in an operation that will last until October 25, ANA airports announced on Wednesday.

The company that manages national airports highlighted the importance of this route between Faro and the Canadian city being extended to the summer, after two decades in which regular routes between the two airports were only registered in the winter, for the strengthening of demand for the Algarve by tourists from North America.

“It is the first time that the airline extends the operation to the Algarve during the summer,” ANA-VINCI Airports stressed in a statement, considering that this long-haul connection gives “a clear positive sign of the importance that the region assumes” and is the result of the work of the airport company “in the development and sustainability of routes” to Portugal.

The same source argued that the establishment of this route over the next nine months was also the result of a “joint effort” between the Canadian airline and the company that manages airports in Portugal, contributing to expanding “the connectivity of the region” in the Algarve with the capital of Canada’s Ontario province.

ANA also stressed that according to “records over the last 20 years, this will be the first time that the airline has operated in Faro in the summer”, bringing “20 more movements in the winter” and “64 more movements in the summer”.

“Passengers on this route will fly on Air Transat’s latest fleet, including the new A321neoLR aircraft, which has the lowest environmental impact in its class, with a capacity for 199 passengers,” the airport company further noted.

Quoted in the statement, the commercial director of ANA – Aeroportos de Portugal, Francisco Pita, said that this was an “important move by Air Transat” and that creating routes to Faro “also as a summer destination” represents “new opportunities for the development of tourism” in the Algarve.

“It will be an important diversification of the offer on summer routes to Faro Airport, and we are very optimistic about the success of this operation,” he added.

The Canadian airline’s director of sales and marketing, Joseph Adamo, was “enthusiastic” about the resumption of operations in Faro, which allowed the expansion of service between Canada and Portugal.

“This route, which now becomes annual, allows Canadian visitors to explore the magnificent region of the Algarve, an increasingly popular coastal destination that has so much to offer in terms of culture and majestic landscapes, and at the same time offers Portuguese passengers the opportunity to discover the ‘great white north’,” he added, referring to that country in North America.