As expected, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s office announced on August 8th that a new treaty bringing greater liberalization of air ties between Canada had been signed. Initially I assumed that this was an open skies agreement and that we might see an interesting flurry of aviation activity between the two countries. I did some digging but found precious little detail, just horrifically nebulous statements released through the PM’s website and wire pieces describing the agreement as being open-skies-like. Interestingly enough WestJet released a statement welcoming this liberalization before Air Canada – some good sabre rattling.
In the absence of detail, I have elected to offer conjecture:
The two carriers this affects the most are Air Canada and TAM. Air Canada is the only carrier from either country that operates regular flights between the two countries – a daily 777-300ER service between Toronto and Sao Paulo with a TAM code share. Assuming the agreement permits fifth freedom traffic rights, I’m sure Air Canada will pounce and stick a tag-on leg onto this flight. After all having a 777 sit on the ground in Sao Paulo for 11 hours is hardly good commercial sense. Toronto-Sao Paulo-Buenos Aires jumps out a viable possibility. The Canada-Argentina Air Transport Agreement permits Air Canada (as the designated Canadian carrier) rights to fly from any point in Canada to Buenos Aires via Lima, Santiago and two other yet-to-be-named points (outside the USA and the Caribbean). Buenos Aires aside I can’t think of any desirable points near Sao Paolo that would make sense as an add-on. That is of course working on the assumption that the Brazilians did not agree to allow Canadian carriers to fly intra-Brazil.
Given the statistics being put out by the Canadian Tourism Commission, I feel that there is likely enough (business and tourist) traffic to start either a Toronto–Rio de Janeiro or a Montreal–Rio de Janeiro service. While doing some research I stumbled upon the fact that YYZ-GRU and YUL-GIG are exactly the same great circle distance – 5075nm – well within the reach of a 767-330, A330-300 or a 777-300ER. All three of these models are operated by both TAM and AC. It really just becomes a question of aircraft availability and will. I predict it will be AC who pursues this first – with a TAM code share of course.
