Travel for study purposes, visits to family and friends abroad, as well as for tourism activities, are being reactivated in Peru and the rest of the world, Air Canada's Sales Director for Latin America Luis Noriega has affirmed.
"The reactivation of tourism is going very well. We saw that the first reactivated component was that of students followed by visits from family and friends," he told Andina news agency.
"There is a third component that we are witnessing, and that we call the 'revenge trip,' which means tourists who spent two years without traveling and now have the opportunity to travel, learn, live, and experience (visiting other places) again," he added.
The Air Canada executive affirmed that tourists who used to travel frequently before the COVID-19 pandemic began are waiting for the opening and the facilities offered by various countries to attract foreign visitors.
"We are seeing that (type of) traveler in every destination where we are flying because, as soon as a market gets activated, people take advantage and start traveling a lot," he explained.
Routes and frequencies
Noriega announced that Air Canada will once again operate its direct routes from Lima to the Canadian cities of Montreal and Toronto from October 31 and November 2, respectively, after more than two years of having suspended them due to the coronavirus pandemic.
"Since the pandemic began, once we suspended routes, we have not had any commercial passenger flights to Canada, and neither have other airlines, well, except for the rescue flights that we had operated, as well as cargo flights," he indicated.
For his part, Air Canada's Regional Manager for Andean countries, Alfredo Babun, explained that the direct flight between Lima and Montreal will have a frequency of once a week, every Monday, until December 5, 2022.
Afterwards, it will increase to two weekly flights (every Monday and Thursday) until March 23, 2023.
In the case of the Lima-Toronto route, flights are scheduled for every Wednesday and Saturday until December 3, 2022. Later, a frequency will be added (Friday), which will go into effect until March 25, 2023.
The executive also recalled that, prior to the pandemic, flights from Peru to Canada had departed every day. Thus, they hope to resume that frequency in the near future.