Air Canada begins nonstop service between Canada and the Canary Islands on October 25, when its 182-seat Airbus A321XLR departs Toronto Pearson (YYZ) for Tenerife South (TFS) — the first scheduled link between North America and the island. Montréal–Trudeau (YUL) follows six days later, on October 31.

The roughly nine-hour sectors are the longest yet for the carrier's new narrowbody and mark the first time Canada has had nonstop access to the Canary Islands. Announced in April as seasonal winter-sun services, both routes start with conservative frequencies: Toronto at twice weekly, Montréal initially at once weekly.

Flight AC954 departs Toronto at 8:35 PM on Thursdays and Sundays, arriving at 9:00 AM the morning after. The return, AC955, leaves Tenerife at 10:55 AM on Mondays and Fridays and reaches Toronto at 2:50 PM. From Montréal, AC956 departs at 9:00 PM each Saturday, arriving the next morning at 9:00 AM; the Sunday return lands at 2:10 PM.

The cabin configuration underpins the economics. Air Canada's A321XLR carries 14 Signature Class seats in a 1-1 layout with fully flat beds and direct aisle access, plus 168 Economy seats — capacity far below widebody levels, matched to leisure demand with pronounced seasonal peaks.

"The addition of Tenerife reflects our continued ambition to offer our customers and Aeroplan members an exceptional, diversified array of unique destinations," the airline said. "Enabled by the next-generation capabilities of our A321XLR aircraft, travelers on the only non-stop service from North America now have convenient options to reach an island renowned for its stunning volcanic scenery, a rich array of bucket-list activities, and year-round warm weather."

A tested market, approached with narrowbody discipline

The routes put Air Canada into direct competition with Air Transat on Canary Islands capacity. Air Transat launches Montréal–Las Palmas and Toronto–Las Palmas on December 12, 2026, each at once weekly with the A321LR — the shorter-range sibling of the XLR.

Both carriers are entering a market with a cautionary precedent. United Airlines served the Canaries from North America with Boeing 757s, extending the route through a winter before ending operations in April 2025; proposed resumptions were later removed from schedules. Air Canada and Air Transat are effectively testing the same geography with low frequencies and long-range narrowbodies rather than committing widebody capacity.

Tenerife's tourism authority has spent several years targeting North American travelers and identifies Toronto and Montréal among its most important source cities — demand-side groundwork that the Canadian carriers now appear willing to underwrite.

Nine routes, two aircraft types, one strategy

Tenerife opens a broader long-haul expansion running from late 2026 into mid-2027:

Route	Launch	Aircraft
Toronto–Tenerife	October 25, 2026	A321XLR
Montréal–Tenerife	October 31, 2026	A321XLR
Vancouver–Sapporo	December 17, 2026	787-9
Vancouver–Guangzhou	May 4, 2027	787-9
Montréal–Dubrovnik	May 11, 2027	787-9
Toronto–Oslo	June 2, 2027	A321XLR
Toronto–Shannon	June 10, 2027	A321XLR
Toronto–Nice	June 16, 2027	A330-300
Montréal–Basel	June 16, 2027	A321XLR

The pattern splits cleanly by aircraft. The A321XLR opens thin European markets — Toulouse, Nantes and Lyon already fly with the type — where widebody economics would not hold. The Boeing 787-9 carries the transpacific and higher-density assignments: seasonal Vancouver–Sapporo from December 17, and a year-round Vancouver–Guangzhou service from May 4, 2027.

A further regulatory opening appeared on September 24, when Canada and Vietnam expanded their air transport agreement to permit direct scheduled passenger flights. Air Canada has announced no Vietnam service, but with Vancouver consolidating as its transpacific hub, the market is an obvious candidate once bilateral capacity is available.

Whether the Canary Islands sustain year-round Canadian demand — the question that grounded United's 757 experiment — will get its first data point this winter, with Air Canada's A321XLR dispatches from Toronto beginning in under a month.