Air France extends Vancouver flight schedule to winter months

Vancouver’s only non-stop, direct flight route to Paris will remain in service throughout the winter months.

According to the Vancouver Airport Authority, Air France will expand its flight schedule from Vancouver International Airport to Charles de Gaulle Airport to include regular flights from October 2015 to March 2016. The flights will operate three times a week during this late-fall and winter period, providing locals with an extended escape to the ‘City of Light’ and French tourists with convenient access to B.C.’s ski slopes.

Currently, during the summer months, Air France operates five times per week, but this will be reduced to three times a week from September 14 to October 24.

The airline had originally announced that the flights would be a seasonal service – a trial run to determine whether there would be sufficient demand to implement a year-round service.

Air France launched its Vancouver service on March 29 with three flights per week.

This announcement of new additional Vancouver flights will provide YVR with another major boost for reaching another banner year for passenger traffic. The airport recorded 19.36 million passengers in 2014, a historic record for the airport and an increase of 1.39 million passengers over the previous year.

This past spring, YVR also added a new Air Canada Rouge service between Vancouver and Osaka, Japan, operating five times a week until October. And in late-June, China Eastern Airlines started a new thrice-weekly route from Vancouver to Kunming, China.