Air Canada axes Singapore – Vancouver route

Air Canada is quietly pulling out of Singapore early next year, with the Star Alliance carrier having removed its five times weekly Boeing 787-9 service to and from Vancouver from its schedules from late January 2027 onwards, less than three years after the route launched.

There’s been no announcement from the airline, but the flights are no longer bookable past these final dates.

• The final AC19 from Vancouver will depart on Sunday 24th January 2027.
• The last AC20 departs Changi two days later, on Tuesday 26th January 2027.

If that date sounds familiar to regular readers, it should. It’s almost 36 years to the day since Air Canada last walked away from Singapore, suspending all its Changi services from 27th January 1991.

Once again, there will be no non-stop flights between Singapore and Canada at all, a troubled country pairing when it comes to aviation links, as we covered in detail earlier this year.

The final schedule

Until the route ends, Air Canada will continue operating four or five flights per week in each direction, with the following timings.

Singapore Vancouver
Now – 24 Oct 2026

			Days
			M	T	W	T	F	S	S
	AC20 787-9
SIN 07:00		YVR 06:25
Duration: 14:25

Vancouver Singapore
Now – 23 Oct 2026

			Days
			M	T	W	T	F	S	S
	AC19 787-9
YVR 22:10		SIN 05:15*
Duration: 16:05

* Two days later

From the start of the winter season, flights step back up to five times weekly for the route’s final three months.

Singapore Vancouver
25 Oct 2026 – 26 Jan 2027

			Days
			M	T	W	T	F	S	S
	AC20 787-9
SIN 08:40		YVR 07:45
Duration: 14:05

Vancouver Singapore
25 Oct 2026 – 24 Jan 2027

			Days
			M	T	W	T	F	S	S
	AC19 787-9
YVR 23:15		SIN 07:00*
Duration: 16:45

* Two days later

Timings have shifted since the route launched in April 2024. Westbound flights now leave Vancouver at 10.10pm (11.15pm from late October) rather than just after midnight. They still arrive at Changi in the early morning, two calendar days later thanks to the International Date Line.

The return AC20 leaves Singapore in the morning and touches down in Vancouver earlier the same morning, technically arriving before it departed.

The final westbound service lands at Changi at 7am on 26th January 2027. The aircraft then turns around as the last ever (for now) AC20 at 8.40am, closing the chapter just under three years after it opened.

Eagle-eyed members of the FlyerTalk forum first noticed something was up with the carrier’s Singapore flights in early September, when the cheaper fare classes on the route were closed off for all dates more than four months out.

It’s a tell-tale sign that an airline plans to cut a route when it starts offering only expensive fully flexible tickets for sale on otherwise empty flights.

This week, the flights have been removed entirely from the Global Distribution System (GDS) and the Air Canada website.

Why is Air Canada pulling out?

The airline hasn’t yet said. There’s been no press release and no statement, just flights disappearing completely from the booking system.

That’s not unusual for a route exit, especially one the airline would rather not draw attention to, but there were warning signs.

The route was quietly trimmed from four to three weekly flights for parts of July, August and September this year. A peak summer cutback like that is rarely a good sign.

The Singapore flights were also always a bet on connecting traffic, not just point-to-point demand. When Air Canada announced the route in 2023, it pitched Changi as a gateway to Southeast Asia, South India and Western Australia via Singapore Airlines’ network.

The trouble is that Canada – Southeast Asia travellers have no shortage of one-stop options via Hong Kong, Taipei, Tokyo, Seoul and Manila. Many of those carriers offer multiple daily flights to both Vancouver and Toronto.

A five times weekly ultra-long-haul service, costly to operate at the best of times, was always going to find that a tough fight.

Airlines have also faced sharply higher fuel costs this year, and Air Canada has already suspended several routes it described as no longer economically feasible. Whether that played a part here, we don’t know.

There’s also the cargo angle. On a sector this long, the Boeing 787-9 often can’t fill its hold with cargo because of payload limits, removing a revenue stream that the carrier’s shorter Asia routes like Japan, China and Thailand can benefit from.

A brief history

We covered Singapore’s four-decade struggle for a lasting air link with Canada in detail back in January. The highlights (and lowlights) are as follows:

• 1984: Singapore and Canada initialled a bilateral agreement so restrictive for SIA that industry insiders dubbed it “a pig in a poke”.
• January 1985: Air Canada launched Toronto – London – Bombay – Singapore flights with Lockheed TriStars, while SIA was stuck on the sidelines.
• 1986 – 1987: Singapore gave notice to terminate the agreement. A new deal was signed at 2.46am on 30th May 1987, just weeks before the deadline.
• July 1988: SIA finally launched flights to Canada, serving Singapore – Seoul – Vancouver with Boeing 747s.
• January 1991: Air Canada suspended all Singapore flights as fuel prices soared due to the Gulf War, just six weeks after announcing an expansion.
• June 1991 – June 1992: SIA’s Toronto flights via Vienna and Amsterdam lasted barely a year. Canada tore up the air treaty, accusing SIA of poaching transatlantic passengers.
• 1992 – 2009: Vancouver survived on annually renewed temporary permits until the global financial crisis ended it in April 2009.
• December 2021: SIA returned with non-stop A350 flights during the pandemic Vaccinated Travel Lane era, then quit again with a final departure on 30th September 2023.
• April 2024: Air Canada returned to Singapore for the first time in over 30 years, growing to five times weekly from December 2024.

Now the pendulum swings once more, and neither SIA nor Air Canada will be flying the route from early 2027.

What are the alternatives?

From late January 2027, travellers between Singapore and Canada will need at least one stop. There are plenty of ways to do it:

• Via North Asia on Star Alliance:
  • EVA Air via Taipei, or ANA via Tokyo.
  • Air Canada’s own flights from cities like Bangkok, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Manila, connecting from Singapore Airlines services. These will be the natural choice for KrisFlyer and Aeroplan redemptions.
• Via Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific: Cathay has the deepest schedule to both Vancouver and Toronto from Asia, and is the obvious route for Asia Miles and Avios members.
• Via the US on Singapore Airlines: Flying to Seattle, San Francisco or Los Angeles and connecting onwards works, but remember the US has no airside transit. You’ll need to clear immigration, with an ESTA or visa, even just to change planes.

Bangkok survives

Air Canada isn’t abandoning South East Asia, just Singapore.

Its Boeing 787-9 flights between Vancouver and Bangkok went year-round from summer 2026, after previously operating only in winter. Air Canada is now the only airline offering year-round non-stop service between North America and Thailand.

Thailand is a big leisure destination in its own right. Singapore, by contrast, relied on connecting passengers via SIA, which has its own US non-stops and every reason to keep those travellers on its own aircraft.

For Singapore-based travellers, Bangkok is just over two hours from Changi. That makes positioning there for Air Canada’s non-stop flight to Vancouver an easy option, especially on an Aeroplan or KrisFlyer award.

What if you’re already booked?

Air Canada is already cancelling bookings on this route beyond the final flight, with some passengers seeing entire trips scrapped. If you hold tickets on the route after 26th January 2027, check your booking now rather than waiting to hear from the airline.

Affected passengers are normally offered rebooking on an alternative routing, or a refund. Acting early will give you a better pick of the alternatives.

If you booked through a travel agent, or on a codeshare ticket issued by another carrier, remember you’ll have to go through whoever issued your ticket – Air Canada won’t be able to help you directly.

Will Singapore Airlines step in?

Don’t hold your breath.

SIA’s long-haul fleet is about to come under pressure. The A350 Long Haul and Ultra Long Haul retrofit programme starts any time now, and will tie up some aircraft continually for around three years.

Meanwhile, the Boeing 777-9 isn’t expected in service until mid-2027 at the earliest and one more Boeing 777-300ER will leave the fleet before the first 777-9 even arrives.

When SIA pulled out of Vancouver in 2023, it cited adjusting capacity to demand. It’s hard to see Vancouver climbing SIA’s priority list while long-haul aircraft in its fleet are this scarce, especially if Air Canada couldn’t make the numbers work, as it seems SIA couldn’t before it.

Never say never on this route, of course. Its history is nothing if not unpredictable.

Air Canada’s return to Singapore in 2024 briefly restored a direct link that SIA had given up on. Now it’s going too, with the final Vancouver flight departing Changi on 26th January 2027.

That leaves Singapore without a non-stop connection to Canada for the first time since April 2024, and neither Air Canada nor Singapore Airlines has managed to keep a direct link going for more than a few years at a time since the 2009 exit.

For travellers, the one-stop options via North Asia and Hong Kong are plentiful, so this is certainly more of an inconvenience than a crisis. For history lovers, it’s one more twist in a saga that has now spanned more than 40 years.

Oh Canada, again.

(Cover Photo: Air Canada)