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Air Canada is set to return to Brisbane and also significantly ramp up its services to Sydney.
However, the North American carrier will not return to Auckland until mid-November, and then only with a three times weekly service.
The news comes as Australia, Canada and New Zealand all recently relaxed COVID restrictions and border rules.
From 1 May, Vancouver–Sydney flights will increase to becoming daily, while a four times weekly service to Brisbane will resume from 1 July.
Flights between the British Columbia and North Island city, though, won’t restart until 10 November, and then with only a three times weekly service.
Air Canada senior vice president Mark Galardo said the business was accelerating the restoration of its Australian and New Zealand routes to respond to what he called pent-up travel between the three countries. The airline will operate its fleet of 298-seat 787-9 Dreamliners for the trips.
Australians and New Zealanders making the journey to Canada will also not have to take any pre-departure tests after the country dropped the requirement this week.
The news comes days after New Zealand announced it would relax its international border restrictions.
The country will allow fully vaccinated Australians to enter from 11.59pm on 12 April, and visitors will not need to isolate. Within hours of the announcement from Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, Qantas and Jetstar said they would boost daily return flights across the Tasmin.
The flag carrier and its subsidiary will operate 30 return flights per week on five routes, a major boost from the two previously running.
Qantas will fly daily from Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney to Auckland and Sydney to Christchurch on its Boeing 737 aircraft and Airbus A330 aircraft.
Jetstar, meanwhile, will operate three weekly flights from the Gold Coast to Auckland on its Airbus A320 jets.
Brian Beban
says:I went on Air Canada’s site to book in December from Brisbane to Vancouver. It caused me to check Air NZ as well as any other airline and I found the return airfares currently are approx. $2800 on average. That is more than double the Economy fares pre covid and roughly equal to a discounted Qantas Premium Economy tix I purchased in October for Feb which I could not use. Post Covid fares are going to be enormous due to airlines catching up with losses as well as increases in fuel.