WestJet’s inaugural flight between Vancouver International Airport and London’s Gatwick Airport is slated for May 6.
This is the first time WestJet is offering service to Europe from Vancouver. The airline will offer this non-stop service six times weekly during the summer and plans to halt the service on October 21.
The plan is then to resume the service in May 2017.
WestJet this spring is also launching non-stop flights to five other Canadian airports.
Its flights between Gatwick and Calgary International Airport as well as the flights between Gatwick and Toronto Pearson International Airport are intended to be year-round.
Spokesman Robert Palmer explained to Business in Vancouver earlier this year that Calgary's relative scarcity of non-stop flights to Europe was part of the reason why his airline chose to make the Calgary flights year-round instead of making its Vancouver flights year-round.
“Vancouver currently has far more international flights and carriers than Calgary,” he said. “So, that's part of it. It's also partly the way the aircraft is cycled.”
The Calgary flights, for example, will use the same planes that are on the Calgary-Hawaii route.
WestJet also plans to keep service to and from LGW on a seasonal basis between Edmonton International Airport, Winnipeg James Armstrong Richardson Airport and St. John’s International Airport.
WestJet's winter Toronto flights to and from Gatwick will be daily whereas flights between Calgary and Gatwick will be three times per week during the 2016-2017 winter season.
As part of a promotion to fill the flights, WestJet offered discounted one-way fares as cheap as $323 each way between Vancouver and Gatwick.
The Vancouver-Gatwick flights leave Vancouver at 6:30 p.m. and arrive in London at 11:47 a.m.
Return trips then leaves London at around 1:00 p.m. and arrive in Vancouver at around 3 p.m.
A ceremony to launch the flights will take place May 6 at 5 p.m. and include speeches from B.C. Tourism Minister Shirley Bond as well as WestJet CEO Gregg Saretsky and Vancouver Airport Authority CEO Craig Richmond.
