Only a week into its new Kelowna-Montreal summer schedule, Air Canada announced the milestone flights will continue year-round.
"We can now say the service will operate year-round," said Montreal-based Air Canada director of network scheduling Eric Bordeleau at a special ceremony at Kelowna International Airport on Monday.
"Everything was loaded into the online booking system this morning."
It was big news earlier this year when Air Canada announced it would launch three-times-weekly service between Kelowna and Montreal for the summer, starting June 26.
After all, the announcement came in the midst of a pandemic and it's the first time ever there's been non-stop service between the Okanagan and Quebec's largest city.
While flights actually started June 26, Air Canada waited until Monday to have an event at Kelowna airport.
The timing was deliberate to be after BC's stage 3 reopening on July 1, which welcomes tourists from other provinces to BC and allows people to shed their face masks.
Media and airport, airline, tourism and city officials gathered outdoors on the tarmac without masks for the ceremony.
However, since airports and airlines are federally regulated, masks are still mandatory in the airport terminal building and while flying.
"It's not been an easy past 15 months," said Air Canada director of local and provincial government relations Serge Corbeil.
"So, it's a pleasure to be marking these new flights between Kelowna and Montreal on the fantastic Airbus A220-300, which was Canadian designed and built in Montreal."
The new-generation A220 at 137 seats (125 economy and 12 business class) is touted as perfect for the four-and-a-half hour flights between Kelowna and Montreal.
It is also billed as 25% more fuel efficient, 50% quieter and creates 20% less CO2 emissions.
The new service means Kelowna now has flights to all four of Air Canada's strategic hubs of Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto.
Kelowna-Montreal was the most requested new domestic route, according to Alejandra Ramirez, the manager of air service development at Montreal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport who was also at the Kelowna ceremony.
Tourists from Montreal will be coming to Kelowna to visit family and friends, golf, mountain bike and wine tour this summer and ski in the winter.
Tourists from the Okanagan will seek out Montreal for its French flair, big-city vibe and visiting friends and family.
Flight frequency will increase from three times a week, to four later this month and five in August.
With the frequency, the flights are also expected to attract business travellers and those from the Okanagan looking for quick and easy connections from Montreal to the rest of Air Canada's network, including Atlantic Canada, the eastern US and Carribean, South America, Europe and Morocco.
Kelowna Mayor Colin Basran was at the ceremony and pointed out Kelowna airport will have more flights and destinations post-COVID than it did pre-pandemic.
Besides Air Canada's new routing between Kelowna and Montreal; Flair Airlines has started the first ever Kelowna-Ottawa flights; WestJet is launching new flights to Saskatoon and Regina; Swoop is flying between Kelowna and Winnipeg; WestJet and Pacific Coastal Airlines are flying to Victoria; Pacific Coastal also flies to Cranbrook; Central Mountain Air offers service to Prince George; Air North has Kelowna-Whitehorse flights; and WestJet has increased frequency to Calgary, Edmonton and Toronto.
International borders will have to reopen before airlines can consider Kelowna for the return of service to Seattle, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Cancun, Cabo San Lucas, Puerto Vallarta and Cuba.
