Nearly 12 Hours: Air Transat Adds New Longest Route

On November 20, Air Transat added another brand-new route to Africa. In June next year, it’ll take off from Toronto to Accra. It will be the sole service between Canada and Ghana, which follows the signing of a bilateral air service agreement between the two nations in early 2025. The link was announced a day too late to feature in my article about the 13 new long-haul routes being announced in two days.

The Canadian leisure carrier recently added the first-ever route from Canada to Senegal, with Montreal-Dakar service starting next year. This will mark its debut in sub-Saharan Africa. Perhaps not coincidentally, United will end Washington Dulles-Dakar flights after less than one year. Moreover, Air Transat will double its routes to Morocco, with the launch of Montreal-Agadir service.

Air Transat From Toronto To Accra

On June 27, Air Transat will lift off from Canada to the capital of Ghana. It will be the airline’s first route from Canada’s busiest airport to Africa. That is because, until now, all the carrier’s African routes have been francophone and are, therefore, served from Montreal. Significantly, it will be the only African route operated by any Canadian carrier from Toronto.

Running twice a week, Air Transat will deploy the Airbus A330-200. According to ch-aviation, it has 14 frames. When writing, it is not yet clear which configuration will be deployed. The most common layout has 332 seats, which is apt, given the IATA code of the A330-200. This comprises 12 Club Class seats (2-2-2) and 320 seats in economy (3-3-3). Nine abreast in economy is undesirable, but it helps with lower seat-mile costs, which is important to lower-yielding Air Transat.

Does This Brand-New Route Make Sense?

According to booking data for the 12 months to September 2025, Canada-Ghana had approximately 63,000 round-trip passengers. Of these, Toronto-Accra had an estimated 45,000 passengers. Given that it had no nonstop or one-stop services, it was a reasonably sized market. It was Toronto’s third-largest African market, after Cairo (served by EgyptAir) and Lagos (unserved).

KLM carried the most Toronto-Accra passengers. Delta Air Lines via New York JFK was next, followed by United Airlines via Washington Dulles, British Airways via London Heathrow, Ethiopian Airlines via Addis Ababa, and Royal Air Maroc via Casablanca. Ethiopian is particularly curious. Flying with that airline adds 80%+ more distance than a nonstop flight would cover. And on the way back to Toronto, passengers have to change planes in Addis and refuel in Rome. They must only be attracted to lower fares.

According to senior network planner, African aviation specialist, and industry commentator Behramjee Ghadially, Air Transat will find its new Accra route difficult. “It’ll suffer from a load imbalance [i.e., in each direction], from having no US feed, and from having hardly any domestic Canada feed.” In other words, it will disproportionately rely on the local market. Ghadially was proven correct when he predicted that United’s Dulles-Dakar route would end in less than a year.

It Is Air Transat’s New Longest Route

At 4,717 nautical miles (8,736 km) each way, it is Air Transat’s new longest route. It surpasses the distance of what was to be first, Toronto to Rio de Janeiro, by 6%; this route begins in February. But it won’t be Air Transat’s longest-ever service. Although only briefly served, Vancouver-Rome and Montreal-Tel Aviv covered more distance.

With a block time of 11h 35m from Accra back to Toronto, it will also rank first in this sense. It is 15 minutes longer than what was to be number one: Istanbul back to Toronto. This route begins next month. It will exist in part to feed Turkish Airlines, whose flights are limited by bilateral restrictions.