Above: an Air Canada Rouge plane

By the Caribbean Journal staff

Air Canada’s leisure carrier, Air Canada Rouge, is adding several new Caribbean destinations out of Montreal and Toronto, it announced Monday.

The new destinations include Cuba, the Dominican Republic, the Bahamas, Barbados, Haiti and Cancun.

The move is a shift for the destinations from Air Canada to Air Canada Rouge service.

The company said the shift to Rouge represented an increase of 22 percent more seats on the routes compared to last summer, with the greatest jump out of Montreal, with a 36 percent increase.

“Customer response to Air Canada rouge for vacation travel has been very positive since it started flying just last summer,” said Ben Smith, Air Canada’s Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer.  “The addition of more year-round Caribbean destinations to Air Canada rouge’s network is the next logical step as our leisure carrier enables us to compete on a more cost effective basis on these routes while leveraging the strength of Air Canada Vacations.”

Air Canada Rouge plans to have a fleet of four Boeing 767-300ER planes and 13 Airbus A319 planes transferred from Air Canada before the end of March.

Several destinations, including Haiti, will be converted to Route on what the company called a “phased-in basis” from March to May 2014 “as additional aircraft are released by the mainline airline for operation by its leisure carrier.”