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Mr. Avery said he was also open to connecting other Canadian cities to the Europe, where it is possible.

The 737-700 aircraft used on the new route will originate in Toronto, offering a connection to Dublin from Canada’s largest city. WestJet will also be adding a new daily connecting service from Ottawa to St. John’s and additional flights from Halifax to help feed traffic into the route.

WestJet eventually hopes to build St. John’s into a jumping off point to Europe, much in the same way it uses Vancouver now for destinations like Hawaii and Los Angeles on the West Coast, Mr. Avery said.

The 737-700 has a range of 6,370 km, according to Boeing’s specs, and the St. John’s-Dublin route is well within that range at 4,300 km.

Mr. Avery said the airline is comfortable flying the aircraft up to 4,800 km, which could potentially open markets like London, Paris, Madrid, Lisbon, and Frankfurt, as well as from St. John’s any number of secondary cities across the continent. It could also potentially open a market like Halifax to Dublin.

“We’ve looked at other opportunities, but right now we’re focused on Dublin,” Mr. Avery said.

He noted the flights to Dublin will be about 4 hours going across the Atlantic and up to 5 hours coming back, which is roughly the same length of a flight from Toronto to Calgary or Vancouver.

WestJet, which is still in the midst of determining what its next in-flight entertainment system will be, will offer four channels of stored movies and TV and free food and beverages on the flights for its premium economy seats and buy-on-board for its economy section, the company said.