Air Canada is gearing up for its biggest European summer ever, with 62 nonstop routes scheduled for July 2027 — more corridors and more flights than the airline has ever run across the Atlantic. The expansion is largely thanks to the Airbus A321XLR, a narrow-body jet capable of long-haul flights that has opened up smaller European cities without needing a widebody aircraft.
The busiest routes cluster around Montreal and Toronto. From Toronto, London Heathrow gets a whopping five flights a day, including one daytime departure on the A321XLR — nicknamed the "Daytripper" — that leaves Toronto in the morning and lands in London in the evening, so you arrive rested instead of red-eyed. Frankfurt gets double daily service from both Toronto and Montreal, while Paris sees two daily flights from Montreal. Athens, Rome, and Munich all feature heavily too.
Beyond the big hubs, there's genuine breadth here. Montreal gains daily service to Amsterdam, Barcelona, Brussels, Geneva, and Milan, while Toronto flies daily to Edinburgh, Manchester, Dublin, Lisbon, Madrid, Vienna, and Zurich. Western Canada isn't left out: Vancouver gets daily nonstops to Frankfurt and Heathrow, and Calgary links to Heathrow daily. Halifax keeps its long-standing Heathrow route plus a three-times-weekly Brussels flight, and even Ottawa gets in on the act with four weekly Heathrow departures.
Some of the most interesting options for travellers sit at the lower frequencies. Toronto–Reykjavík and Montreal–Lisbon run six times a week, while Montreal adds five-weekly flights to Nice, Porto, Toulouse, Madrid, and Keflavík. Toronto–Nice runs twice weekly, and Vancouver–Dublin four times a week. For anyone in Canada outside the big eastern hubs, these are the routes that make a European summer trip far simpler than connecting through Toronto.
Why it matters: this is a genuinely useful expansion for anyone in Canada — or anywhere Air Canada flies — planning a European holiday for summer 2027. More frequency on core routes means better fares and easier rebooking if things go wrong, while the secondary-city routes (Porto, Toulouse, Nice, Reykjavík) let you skip the mega-hubs entirely. The daytime London flight is a small but real quality-of-life upgrade for travellers who dread overnight red-eyes. Keep an eye on schedules as 2027 approaches; with frequencies this ambitious, expect competitive pricing on transatlantic fares next summer.