MONTREAL, Feb 9, 2026, 01:23 EST
- Air Transat kicked off nonstop service to Rio de Janeiro out of both Toronto and Montreal, with flights running through June.
- February brings a rush of new routes—Canada targeting the Caribbean, plus fresh links popping up between the U.S., Europe, and Asia.
- Porter is ramping up service, and Air Canada isn’t sitting still either, intensifying the race for winter travellers.
Air Transat has kicked off nonstop service to Rio de Janeiro out of both Toronto and Montreal, now standing as the sole carrier with a direct Montreal-Rio option. The airline schedules two weekly flights from Toronto and one from Montreal, with service running through early June.
There’s nothing accidental about the timing. Airlines in February are rolling out new point-to-point routes, aiming to capture winter travelers and skip connections that often tack on hours and hassle for leisure fliers.
The shakeup stretches across North America and overseas, with an array of new routes debuting this month as airlines eye novel city pairings and capitalize on demand for vacation spots. Porter Airlines, a Canadian competitor, is pushing further into the Caribbean. U.S. carriers have their own fresh international routes on deck, and India’s IndiGo isn’t sitting out either, according to Aviation Week.
Air Canada, which is already flying nonstop to Sao Paulo out of both Toronto and Montreal, launched flights between Toronto and Rio back in December, Aviation Week reports. The outlet, referencing Sabre Market Intelligence data, says origin-and-destination traffic between Canada and Brazil—counting all passengers making the trip in either direction, no matter the route—reached roughly 348,500 round-trip travelers in the year through June 2025.
Sebastian Ponce, chief revenue officer at Transat, described the new routes as a “direct bridge between Canada and Brazil.” Kurush Minocher, chief commercial officer at Toronto Pearson, sees Canada-Rio travel as “a growing market,” pegging yearly passenger numbers between the two at close to 44,000. Newswire
According to the statement, flights to Rio depart Toronto on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and leave Montreal on Thursdays, both routes operated with Airbus A330 aircraft.
Air Transat is counting on partnerships to help cement the new route. The company noted it’s teamed up with Brazil’s GOL Airlines via an interline deal, which allows passengers to book connecting flights on a single ticket—usually with checked bags handled through—for further travel past Rio, covering destinations like Sao Paulo and Salvador.
Air Transat is rolling out more direct options to sun destinations from Canada’s smaller cities this winter. The airline’s latest route update includes new Cancun flights out of Charlottetown and Fredericton, set to launch on Feb. 18, plus a Fort-de-France connection from Quebec City beginning in mid-December.
An AOL travel piece pitched the Rio flights as a fresh route for Canadians aiming for Brazil, no stopovers in the U.S. required.
Piling on more seats doesn’t always fill planes. Airlines may cut flights or yank seasonal routes ahead of schedule when bookings slow, costs spike, or operations get rocky—risks that loom largest on long-haul leisure trips counting on steady demand once peak periods pass.
