Starting July 12, Air Canada Airbus A320 aircraft will be landing at the Northwest Regional Airport three times per week, replacing flights serviced by smaller aircraft.
The new flights will take the place of AC8240 and AC8243 on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays which used De Havilland Q400 aircraft. The Q400 has around half the passenger capacity of the A320.
The A320 is almost 40 metres long and can seat a total of 146 passengers. It also has business class seating.
“It would be nice to see the jets coming back into Terrace,” said Carman Hendry, airport manager, noting that there is a trade off that comes with larger aircraft.
“Your frequency falls off when you have larger aircraft because the capacity so great, so you may have larger aircraft, but you have fewer options to fly.”
Airbus bills the A320 as its longest range single-aisle aircraft. The new flights will be between Terrace and Vancouver, with AC288 arriving at 2:15 p.m., and AC289 departing the Northwest Regional Airport at 4:00 p.m. on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
According to Air Canada’s flight information webpage, it will take around five minutes less to fly to Vancouver from Terrace than the previous Q400 flights.
Air Canada said in a statement to the Terrace Standard that the change to the larger A320 aircraft was made to meet additional demand, and that the airline will continue to adjust its schedule to reflect market demand.
An Airbus A230 taxis to the terminal after landing at the Northwest Regional Airport on June 30, 2021. (Ben Bogstie/Terrace Standard)
