Virgin Australia and Air Canada in strategic partnership

Virgin and Air Canada have sealed a partnership that will open access for the Australian carrier to Canadian cities.

Virgin boss John Borghetti. Pic: Bloomberg

Virgin Australia and Air Canada have struck a strategic partnership that will open up access for the Australian carrier into Canadian cities.

The two airlines have entered into a codesharing agreement that will allow Virgin Australia customers to book travel on Air Canada’s flights from Los Angeles to Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary and Montreal.

Virgin (VAH) already operates Boeing 777s on a daily service to Los Angeles while Air Canada also operates a 777 on a daily year-round service to Sydney. The Canadian airline also operates a daily service to Brisbane with Boeing 787s.

Travellers arriving on Air Canada’s daily services from Vancouver to Brisbane and Sydney will be able to travel on connecting Virgin flights to the airline’s entire domestic network including Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Cairns, Melbourne, Perth, Christchurch and Auckland.

The arrangement will come into effect early next year after they obtain regulatory approvals.

The memorandum of understanding between the two carriers also lays the groundwork for Virgin and Air Canada to offer reciprocal frequent flyer redemption benefits on each other’s flights.

As part of the partnership Virgin plans to place its code on Air Canada’s direct flights between Australia (Brisbane and Sydney) and Vancouver in a subsequent stage of the agreement.

It’s the first major deal struck under John Thomas — Virgin’s group executive and number two to John Borghetti — since he joined the airline in September.

“We are enhancing our services from Australia to Los Angeles by offering our customers convenient codeshare connections to four major Canadian cities,” he said.

“We are thrilled to be working closely with a world-class airline in Air Canada to deliver new benefits for our customers, including the planned introduction of direct codeshare flights between Australia and Canada.

Canada is an important inbound tourism market for Australia with visitors spending $800 million in 2015 and visitor arrivals increasing by three per cent.