TORONTO — **********’s newly appointed Vice President, Global Sales and Alliances, John MacLeod says travel agent support helped push ********** into the rankings as one of the top 10 airlines in North America.

Now the carrier has its eye on becoming one of the top 10 international carriers in the *****, and agent support will help make that happen too, MacLeod told industry partners at last night’s ********** new routes launch in Toronto.

Lorenzo Campos, Pulse Communications, Travelweek BDM Annie Cicvaric and Switzerland Tourism’s Director, Canada, Pascal Prinz

MacLeod, formerly **********’s VP Commercial Strategy and taking over from former VP Global Sales Duncan Bureau – now that Bureau has been appointed President of ********** Rouge – says travel agents are key to **********’s operations. He thanked Bureau “for building such strong relationships with the travel agency community” and said he looks forward to working with **********’s travel agency partners, “working with you and hearing about how you run your business.”

John MacLeod, **********’s VP Global Sales & Alliances and Khalid Ismail, Director, Agency Sales, Renaissance Vacations

Last night’s event at Toronto’s District 28 event space celebrated **********’s four newest routes, all out of Pearson: Buenos Aires, Zagreb, Porto and Bucharest.

The Buenos Aires flights started May 2 on **********. The other three routes will be operated on ********** Rouge, and start June 2 (Zagreb), June 8 (Porto) and June 9 (Bucharest). In total more than two dozen new routes are launching between May 1 and July 2 and include international services such as Vancouver to Paris and Zurich, Toronto to Shannon, and Montreal to Tokyo-Narita and Bucharest.

The past couple of years have been a whirlwind of new routes (and new route launches) for the carrier, in keeping with **********’s global expansion plans. With these four new additions ********** has inaugurated an astounding 74 new routes since 2016. The carrier has also increased capacity by more than 40% over the past three years.

The whirlwind will slow down for a bit, says MacLeod, but there are still two more new 787s to arrive. The routes for those planes have yet to be decided, he added.