A direct air route between Toronto and Shanghai has gone into operation.

The A340-300 aircraft of Air Canada began flying from Shanghai to Toronto on Sunday, according to the Canadian airways' agent office in Shanghai on Tuesday.

The route will help expand Air Canada's services in China and provide more choices and convenient services for passengers, said Ben Smith, vice president of the network planning of Air Canada.

Flights from Shanghai to Toronto will take 14 hours and 45 minutes on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays, and flights from Toronto to Shanghai will take 13 hours and 40 minutes on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

The direct flights will shorten passengers' flight times by about three hours compared with the former route via Vancouver.

With flights operational between Shanghai and Toronto, Air Canada now operates 13 direct non-stop flights daily between Canada and the cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Tokyo.

As the flagship airline company in Canada, Air Canada, headquartered in Montreal, operates cargo and passenger flights to 150 destinations around the world, serving over 29 million customers annually.

(Xinhua News Agency June 21, 2006)