TravelingForMiles.com may receive commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on TravelingForMiles.com are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. TravelingForMiles.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers.
Some links to products and travel providers on this website will earn Traveling For Miles a commission which helps contribute to the running of the site – I’m very grateful to anyone who uses these links but their use is entirely optional. The compensation does not impact how and where products appear on this site and does not impact reviews that are published.
Air Canada is launching a new route to London using its “Rouge” subsidiary and, in doing so, will be taking on fellow Canadian carrier WestJet and is possibly meant to offer another low-cost option for UK travelers looking to head to the West Coast of North America.
From 8 June 2017 Air Canada Rouge will operate a 3x/week service between Vancouver and London Gatwick using its Boeing 767 aircraft.
The route will be operating for the summer season (through October) on the following schedule:
AC1934 YVR 16:45 – 10:25+1 day LGW (Tue, Thu, Sat)
AC1935 LGW 12:00 – 14:10 YVR (Tue, Thu, Sat)
The new route does come at a cost however as the aircraft will be pulled from the Toronto – Gatwick route which will go from being a daily service to one operated 4x/week.
Air Canada Rouge & Its 767
According to Wikipedia, Air Canada Rouge was formed in December 2012 and commenced service on 1 July 2013. It is part of the air Canada leisure group and, from all the descriptions I’ve read, it appears to work just like the British Airways Gatwick fleet ….except that it’s a standalone company.
Air Canada Rouge primarily serves the leisure market and it has the UK covered pretty well – it already offers services to Glasgow, Edinburgh, Manchester and Gatwick (from Toronto).
The Air Canada Rouge 767 can carry up to 280 passengers and, after having looked at the seat dimensions, it is not an aircraft I have any interest in flying in…at least not in regular economy class.
The seat dimensions in Economy Class are horrific (per SeatGuru):
30″ of seat pitch (leg room) is what you get in Economy Class on short-haul European flights when you fly airlines like British Airways and it’s less than what short-haul Iberia offers.
I’ve tried out the 31″ seat on Iberia and I really didn’t like them…and that was on a trip of under 2 hours. I think I’d die if I had to fly from Vancouver to London with just 30″ of seat pitch!
In all honesty I would rather not go on vacation than put myself through that and I’m not sure how Air Canada Rouge is getting away with it.
Bottom Line
30″ of seat pitch is not close to being enough for a long haul flight and it wouldn’t surprise me if, for some people, it would be medically inadvisable to fly in such cramped conditions.
Apparently quite a few people fly Air Canada Rouge to Europe crammed together like veal calves (I have no idea why) but, if you’re reading this blog, hopefully you already know that life’s to short to be that uncomfortable on an aircraft.
If you can’t afford an alternative then stay at home, save up, and try again next year on a more comfortable carrier….you’ll have a much better time.
