What is Air Canada thinking about?
About 700,000 people of Indian origin live in Canada and yet Air Canada claim that they have tried and failed to make the route to Delhi work.
Air Canada's decision to kill the only direct flight to India in favour of expanding service to China has provoked anger in the Indo-Canadian business community.
The Canadian national airline confirmed Friday it would be discontinuing all direct flights between Toronto and New Delhi in early May - a cost-cutting move, the company said, brought on by declining sales for the route.
The airline currently flies the route every day, the only non-stop flight between Canada and India.
The decision has angered many in the Indo-Canadian business community who claim the move is short-sighted and that empty seats would soon be filled due to India's mushrooming economy.
'This was a big bridge between the two countries that has been snapped,' Kim Rathee, president of the Canada-India Business Council told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).
Earlier this month, Air Canada announced it would add a second daily flight to Beijing from Vancouver and increase the regularity of its Toronto-Shanghai route for a total of five daily flights between the two countries. The planes for the new flights are being diverted from the Toronto-India route.
Rathee told the Toronto Star daily newspaper that he was puzzled by the decision in light of a recent push by the Canadian government for companies to explore doing business with India.
'It's a lousy decision,' he was quoted as saying. 'It's a huge setback to the Canada-India business momentum because Air Canada was a very visible symbol of cooperation and business between the two countries.'
