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Air Canada has long leveraged its northerly location to operate narrowbody twinjets on ‘thinner’ transatlantic routes from its eastern hubs to secondary destinations across the North Atlantic Ocean in Europe. At present, the Boeing 737 MAX 8 forms the backbone of this initiative, although the arrival of the Airbus A321XLR on select transatlantic routes isn’t far away either. Despite the incoming A321XLR, Air Canada is operating more 737s to Europe.
Indeed, data made available by Cirium, an aviation analytics company, shows that, in the third quarter of 2026, 
Air Canada has penciled in a grand total of 326 one-way departures on flights to Europe with the 
Boeing 737 MAX 8. Compared to the figure of 249 that it posted in Q3 of 2025, this represents a 30.9% increase. Seat capacity on this front, meanwhile, is up by an even greater factor of 34.2% thanks to a reconfiguration.
Air Canada’s Icelandic Affair
These 326 rotations will be spread across seven routes serving six European cities. The only destination that will handle Air Canada Boeing 737 MAX 8 flights from multiple Canadian hubs in the third quarter of 2026 is Reykjavík Keflavík International Airport (KEF) in Iceland, to which the type will fly from both Montréal (YUL) and Toronto (YYZ). Air Canada’s MAX 8s served these routes in Q3 of 2025 as well, with 58 and 70 flights respectively.
This time around, its presence is marginally greater, with 72 rotations planned from Toronto and 59 from Montréal. Of the latter 59, 52 (from July to September) will have 169 seats on board, while the final seven in late September will have 177. This is because Air Canada is reconfiguring these aircraft in preparation for their transfer to Rouge, its low-cost and leisure-focused subsidiary. On this front, the Canadian flag carrier explained that:
“Air Canada has opened a new Rouge crew base in Vancouver, coinciding with the entry into service of the first Rouge MAX 8. This investment directly supports more sun and leisure flying from Western Canada.”
Elsewhere In Europe
In Q3 of 2025, Air Canada’s only other transatlantic Boeing 737 MAX routes served destinations located in the United Kingdom. Indeed, the third quarter of last year saw it schedule 92 rotations with the type between Halifax (YHZ) and London Heathrow Airport (LHR), and 29 between Montréal and Edinburgh Airport (EDI) in Scotland. This time around, Heathrow retains its daily service (92 rotations), while Edinburgh has been boosted to 39.
Three new transatlantic routes will also see service from Air Canada’s MAX 8s this year. Another of these also departs from Halifax, with Brussels Airport (BRU) in Belgium set to be served 29 times from Nova Scotia by the type during the third quarter. Meanwhile, the Canadian flag carrier and Star Alliance founding member has also penciled in six rotations from Montréal to Nantes (NTE) and 29 from Toronto to Ponta Delgada (PDL).
Passengers flying in business class on these flights should be aware that, while they are indeed long-haul transatlantic services by nature, the MAX does not have lie-flat seating available in its premium cabins as you might expect on widebody intercontinental services. Instead, as detailed by aeroLOPA, its business class cabin consists of 16 spacious recliner seats in a four-abreast (2-2) configuration similar to US domestic first class.
Record Breaking: Halifax Stanfield International Now Has 13 Routes To Europe
WestJet has been key to Halifax’s growing transatlantic network.
Inside Air Canada’s Narrowbody Fleet Transition
As previously mentioned, Air Canada’s Boeing 737 MAX 8 narrowbody twinjets are the subject of an ongoing single-aisle fleet transition initiative that will see most of them make the move across to its Rouge leisure division. Indeed, current fleet data made available by ch-aviation shows that Air Canada presently has 50 MAX 8s in its fleet: of these, 45 are expected to make the switch. The first of these jets made its debut earlier this month.
In the long run, this won’t spell the end of narrowbody transatlantic operations at Air Canada. Instead, its brand-new Airbus A321XLR jets are expected to take up this mantle, with 30 examples on order. The first of these aircraft took its first test flight earlier this month, and they are expected to serve 12 routes in 2026.
