Condor Airlines meets with Canadian agents

Germany’s Condor Airlines met with Canadian travel professionals last week during the first of several roadshows taking place across the country this winter in the wake of expanded routes in North America.

Some of the new destinations Condor will offer in Canada are Kelowna, St.Johns, Fort McMurray, Yellowknife, Saskatoon and Nanaimo. And as of early May, an expansion of Condor’s interline service with WestJet will allow passengers the option of flying to Germany and beyond via Halifax, Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver and Whitehorse with WestJet connecting from Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Québec and Saskatchewan, as well as from the Yukon.

According to Janet Gorecki-Mackanin, sales manager, North America and Caribbean region, the presentations are a way of reaching out to agents who may not be familiar with Condor as the carrier continues to grow in the Canadian marketplace.

“We recently conducted a survey in Canada and we’ve seen that a lot of agencies don’t know about Condor,” she said, adding that in addition to Toronto, Condor will also be presenting to travel agents in Calgary, Vancouver and Halifax in the coming months.

A former charter service for Germany’s Lufthansa founded in 1955, Condor was sold to the Thomas Cook Group in the early 1990s. In addition to Canada, the airline currently flies to 70 international destinations, said Gorecki-Mackinin. Weekly flights between Frankfurt and several Canadian cities (including Toronto, Halifax, Vancouver, Calgary and Whitehorse), operated on B767 300 aircraft, take place between May and October. Within the last two years, Condor’s aircraft have undergone a complete cabin refurbishment, said Gorecki-Mackinin.

In addition, she noted, cost discrepancies between fares listed on the carrier’s website versus those on GDS will be eliminated  by the end of 2015, as Thomas Cook moves to list all of its airlines’ fares through the Amadeus Altea platform.

“By the end of this year, we’ll have one platform for fare availability,” she said. “We know it was very frustrating for agents in the past, when they booked a customer and then they would say they found it cheaper through the website.”