Air Canada adds Dubrovnik to 2027 summer

Air Canada will launch seasonal nonstop flights between Montreal and Dubrovnik, Croatia starting May 11, 2027. The airline announced the new route alongside several other international destinations for its summer 2027 schedule.

The service will operate three times per week on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Air Canada will use a 255-seat Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner aircraft for the flights.

Air Canada's Return to Croatia

This route 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, briefly resumed service between Toronto and Zagreb in June 2018 after a 27-year hiatus. That service operated four times weekly with Boeing 767-300ER aircraft.

The Zagreb route was later suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent retirement of Rouge's widebody fleet. Air Canada itself had planned to take over the Zagreb route in 2022 with three weekly Airbus A330-300 flights, but withdrew the service from sale before it launched.

The new Dubrovnik link will be the first scheduled nonstop connection between Canada and the Croatian coastal city in over four decades. The last such service was operated by JAT Yugoslav Airlines between Toronto and Dubrovnik in 1983.

Building North American Demand

Dubrovnik is a major tourism destination with a sizable North American visitor market, though most travelers currently connect through other airports. According to OAG Traffic Analyzer data cited in the source, approximately 170,000 passengers traveled between North America and Dubrovnik in 2025, with around 80% connecting en route.

Canada accounted for a small share of that traffic. Only about 6,000 passengers traveled between Montreal and Dubrovnik during 2025. The Toronto-Dubrovnik market accounted for around 12,000 passengers.

Air Canada stated it can give travelers from these major U.S. Markets access to Dubrovnik through its Montreal hub, alongside demand generated within Montreal itself. The source notes that "Dubrovnik has previously sought a nonstop connection with Canada." In 2018, the airport held talks with Air Transat about launching seasonal flights from Toronto, but the proposed service never materialized.

Currently, Dubrovnik has just one nonstop connection with North America: a United Airlines seasonal service between Newark and the city. Delta Air Lines and American Airlines have also previously served the market.

Dubrovnik Airport's Growth

The 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 passengers recorded in 2024. By the time of the report, more than 2.34 million passengers had already passed through the airport in the current year.

August was a particularly strong month. The airport handled 566,259 passengers, its highest monthly total on record. That surpassed the previous August record of 543,733 passengers set in 2025.

For the month of September, airlines had scheduled around 1,633 flights from Dubrovnik with roughly 285,387 seats available. Ryanair had the largest schedule, with nearly 330 departures planned to destinations including Dublin, London Stansted, Bari, and Krakow.

Air Canada's broader summer 2027 plan includes operating more than 125 international routes with up to 169,000 seats available each week from Canada to over 85 international destinations across the Atlantic, Pacific, Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America and South America. The other new destinations announced alongside Dubrovnik are Guangzhou, China; Shannon, Ireland; Nice, France; Oslo, Norway; and Basel, Switzerland.