Frankfurt-based Condor Airlines has increased its capacity for passengers and cargo on flights between its Frankfurt Airport (FRA) base and Vancouver International Airport (YVR).
The airline launched its seasonal FRA-YVR route earlier this year than last year, is flying the route more frequently and is using bigger planes.
Condor launched its FRA-YVR flights three times per week on April 15, and plans on May 1 to up that frequency to five times per week. Tuesdays and Fridays are the days when flights on the route in each direction do not take place.
Flights then continue into October, Condor's director of sales for North America, Mikko Turtiainen told BIV yesterday.
Last year the airline flew the route three times per week during the entire shorter season, he said. The airline restarted flights to Vancouver in May 2022, following the pandemic, in what was also a shorter season.
Condor's flights on its Vancouver route this year all use Airbus A330neo planes that can carry 310 passengers and 3,500 kilograms of cargo. Last year, the airline used the A330neo on some flights on the route but most flights were done with Boeing 767 planes that could only carry 260 passengers, and had very little cargo space, Turtiainen said.
He called the new planes a big upgrade, compared with the Boeing 767s, with seats being more comfortable. The 30 business-class seats can recline 180 degrees so passengers can lie flat. The one-two-one configuration for the business class seating means that every business class seat has aisle access.
Another 64 seats are in the premium-economy section, and have more leg room and can recline further back than the 216 economy seats. The airline also touts its new planes for having "whisper quiet" cabins.
Turtiainen said prices are similar to last year. BIV last night searched for a basic economy-class flight, without seat selection, in June, and the price was about $1,100.
While the new planes are undoubtedly a big capital cost for the airline, Condor anticipates that its fuel costs, and Co2 emissions, will be 20-per-cent less. Operationally, the planes are set to be more profitable because of the lower fuel costs and higher revenue from passengers and cargo, Turtiainen said.
Condor first launched flights to Vancouver in February 2000, he said. The airline never reached its goal of flying daily flights to Vancouver pre-pandemic but flying the route daily remains the airline's objective.
"Our goal is to have daily," he said. "We would love to have daily [flights to Vancouver] but performance is a big driver to that as well as aircraft utilization. It's important for aircraft to be in the air as much as possible."
