Air Canada's flight from Vancouver to Toronto is the world's 9th most profitable route

Air Canada Boeing 737 MAX soaring high above Vancouver. (Air Canada / YouTube screenshot)

Canada’s national carrier’s highly frequent, direct, non-stop flight route connecting Vancouver and Toronto has been ranked the ninth most profitable passenger airline route in the world.

According to OAG Aviation Worldwide, a British-based air travel intelligence company, Air Canada’s service between Vancouver International Airport (YVR) and Toronto Pearson International Airport (YYZ) generates $552 million US annually in revenue for the carrier.

A one-way flight takes about 4.5 hours when traveling eastbound and roughly five hours for westbound trips due to the jet stream.

There are 17 flights per direction per day, totalling 48,253 hours of scheduled flight time and generating $11,445 US in revenue per hour. One flight leaves approximately every hour between 6:30 am and midnight PDT at YVR and between 7 am and 1 am EDT at YYZ.

Some of these flights are layovers for Air Canada’s single-stop layover at YVR for the two separate itineraries flying from YYZ to Hong Kong and Sydney Airport (SYD).

The aircraft used for Air Canada’s non-stop YVR-YYZ route includes the Airbus A321, Airbus A320, Boeing 777, and Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

Of course, none of this includes WestJet’s 11 daily, non-stop routes between YVR and YYZ. When combined, Air Canada and WestJet together operate 28 daily flight options in each direction between both cities.

Air Canada’s YVR-YYZ route topped Singapore Airlines’ SYD to Singapore Changi Airport route, but it ranks below Qatar Airways’ London Heathrow Airport (LHR) to Doha’s Hamad International Airport route.

In the United States, two other routes – both also flying east to west across the continent – made the top 10 list: American Airlines’ route from Los Angeles International Airport to John F. Kennedy International Airport ranked fifth while United Airlines’ route from San Francisco International Airport to Newark Liberty International Airport ranked sixth.

The only route that broke the $1 billion US threshold in OAG’s ranking was British Airways’ service between LHR and New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.

OAG made the assessments based on flight schedules and traffic data between April 2017 and March 2018.

OAG Aviation Worldwide

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