Air Canada Launches New US Routes from Halifax and Vancouver

Recently, Air Canada has been teeming with new route announcements. In the past few months, we’ve seen new or restored service to Copenhagen, Austin, Miami, Osaka, Bangkok, and Mumbai. 

Furthermore, the airline has placed orders for a number of new aircraft, including the Airbus A321XLR and, farther down the line, ES-30 electric aircraft.

This week, Canada’s largest airline has announced upcoming daily service on routes between Halifax–New York (Newark) and Vancouver–Houston. 

Air Canada’s New Vancouver–Houston Route

Air Canada will fly daily between Vancouver and Houston as of December 16, 2022. Currently, the route is scheduled to operate throughout the year.

The flight will operate daily in both directions, and the flight times are as follows:

• AC1300 Vancouver (YVR) to Houston (IAH), departing 8:45am and arriving 3:08pm

• AC1301 Houston (IAH) to Vancouver (YVR), departing 4:30pm and arriving 7:15pm

The flight will be operated by the two-cabin Airbus A220 aircraft, with business class and economy cabins.

At just over four hours in duration, you won’t have the comfort of a lie-flat seat in business class, but you should be just fine otherwise. The newer Airbus A220s offer updated onboard amenities, such as a crisp, responsive touch-screen entertainment system, USB-C charging, and refreshed interiors.

Air Canada’s New Halifax–New York Route

Air Canada will fly daily between Halifax and New York (Newark) as of December 16, 2022. Currently, the route is scheduled to operate throughout the year.

The flight will operate daily in both directions, and the flight times are as follows:

• AC8670 Halifax (YHZ) to Newark (EWR), departing 11:45am and arriving 1:04pm

• AC8669 Newark (EWR) to Halifax (YHZ), departing 1:45pm and arriving 4:35pm

The flight will be operated by the De Havilland-Bombardier Dash-8, with an all-economy cabin. At just over two hours in duration, you’ll be comfortable enough for the short hop between the two airports.

Booking Air Canada’s New US Flights

Aeroplan is the first program we look at for booking Air Canada flights, especially since Aeroplan has access to every single seat for sale.

For the Vancouver–Houston route, at 1,971 miles in distance, booking a flight with Aeroplan points could cost 25,000 Aeroplan points per person one-way in business class. This assumes that lower-cost business class space is available under the dynamic pricing model. 

This flight falls within the third distance band on the Within North America chart, leaving you some wiggle room for a connecting flight on either end before pushing into the next distance band.

Indeed, these flights are already loaded and bookable in the search engine, so we can take a look at the price in both cash and points.

If paying with cash, all dates outside of peak travel periods price consistently around $290+ (CAD) one-way in both directions in economy class. For a round-trip booking, you can expect to pay around $550 for the lowest fare.

Standard points pricing in economy class starts from 11,000 points one-way and goes up to around 28,000 points for peak travel dates. In business class, expect to pay anywhere from 25,000–40,000 points one-way.

There is a decent amount of “R” space sprinkled throughout the schedule, which means you can take advantage of the “Latitude Attitude” strategy to lock in a business class seat at a lower cost, too.

The Halifax–New York (Newark) route measures just 613 miles. This would place it in the second distance band, meaning that a one-way flight should begin at 10,000 points in economy.

For cash fares, expect to pay around $250 (CAD) per direction, or around $450 (CAD) round-trip.

Booking this route with Aeroplan points, we see the price consistently around 9,100–15,000 points for a one-way Economy (Standard) fare. This doesn’t take into account any effects of preferred pricing through having a co-branded Aeroplan credit card or Aeroplan Elite Status.

Another consideration is that Houston and New York are destinations served by many of Aeroplan’s partner airlines. Therefore, you can consider using these new routes as positioning flights to access some of Aeroplan’s other partner airlines to take you on long-haul flights.

For example, Halifax-based Aeroplan members would find great utility in the new direct route to Newark, as it’d open up new one-stop transatlantic and transpacific routing possibilities on many of Aeroplan’s partner airlines departing out of either Newark or New York JFK.

Conclusion

Air Canada will launch daily flights between Vancouver and Houston, as well as between Halifax and New York (Newark), beginning December 16, 2022.

For Aeroplan redemptions, the new routes price out within the published dynamic range. Cash prices are also reasonable for both routes, with mild savings on round-trip bookings.

It’s always great to have more direct options available. This is especially so for Haligonians and other Atlantic Canadians, who have had to route through other hubs to get to New York City in the recent past.