Air Canada adds Dubrovnik, five other new
Air Canada will launch seasonal flights from Montreal to Dubrovnik, Croatia in May 2027, marking its return to the Croatian market with its own aircraft.
Air Canada will launch seasonal flights between Montreal and Dubrovnik, Croatia on May 11, 2027. The service will operate three times per week using a 255-seat Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner.
This route revives a nonstop link between Canada and the Croatian coastal city after more than four decades. JAT Yugoslav Airlines last operated scheduled flights between Toronto and Dubrovnik in 1983.
Air Canada's return to Croatia
The new service marks Air Canada's return to Croatia with its own aircraft after an absence of several years. The carrier previously served the Croatian capital, Zagreb, but discontinued that route in 1991.
Its leisure subsidiary, Air Canada Rouge, brought the brand back to the market in June 2018 with seasonal flights from Toronto to Zagreb. That service used Boeing 767-300ER aircraft but was later suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the retirement of Rouge's widebody fleet. Air Canada itself had planned to take over the Zagreb route in 2022 with Airbus A330-300 flights but withdrew the service before launch.
Building North American demand
Dubrovnik is a major tourism destination with significant North American visitor traffic. According to OAG Traffic Analyzer data cited by Simple Flying, approximately 170,000 passengers traveled between North America and Dubrovnik in 2025. Around 80% of those travelers connected elsewhere.
Canada accounted for a small share of that traffic. Only about 6,000 passengers traveled between Montreal and Dubrovnik during the year. Air Canada will therefore need to build local demand, use its Montreal hub to connect travelers from larger North American markets.
Data for 2025 showed the following passenger volumes on key city-pairs to Dubrovnik:
| Market | Approximate Passengers |
|---|---|
| Greater New York area | 42,000 |
| Los Angeles | 15,000 |
| Chicago | 15,000 |
| Toronto | 12,000 |
| Boston | 11,000 |
Dubrovnik has previously sought a nonstop Canadian connection. In 2018, the airport held talks with Air Transat about a seasonal Toronto service, but the flights never started.
Currently, United Airlines operates the only nonstop service between North America and Dubrovnik, a seasonal flight from Newark. Delta Air Lines and American Airlines have served the market in the past.
Broader 2027 network expansion
The Dubrovnik route is one of six new international destinations announced by Air Canada for summer 2027. The airline revealed the new cities on September 3 after teasing them in a video.
The full list of new destinations includes Guangzhou, China; Shannon, Ireland; Nice, France; Oslo, Norway; Basel, Switzerland; and Dubrovnik, Croatia. The airline will operate seven new routes in total.
For the summer 2027 season, Air Canada plans to operate more than 125 international routes. It will offer up to 169,000 seats each week from Canada to over 85 international destinations across the Atlantic, Pacific, Mexico, the Caribbean, Central and South America.
Dubrovnik airport growth
The destination airport, officially named Ruđer Bošković Airport, is Europe's 141st-busiest by flight movements. It handled 3,090,245 passengers in 2025, a 4.6% increase from the 2.95 million recorded in 2024.
August 2025 was a record month, with the airport handling 566,259 passengers. That surpassed the previous August record of 543,733 passengers set in 2025. For September 2025, airlines scheduled around 1,633 flights from Dubrovnik offering roughly 285,387 seats.
Ryanair has the largest schedule at the airport, with nearly 330 departures planned for the month to destinations like Dublin, London Stansted, Bari, and Krakow.
