Air Transat and Transat Holidays marked the inauguration of the Toronto – Istanbul route at Toronto-Pearson airport before their flight yesterday evening.

The new weekly direct Toronto – Istanbul flight will operate on Sundays from May 15 to October 2011.

Transat Holidays offers vacationers several options for discovering the exotic beauty of Istanbul and Turkey with a program that includes Istanbul & More, Coach Tours, City Hopping by Plane, as well as a range of à la carte accommodation and excursions.

Air Transat is Canada’s leading holiday travel airline. Every year, it carries some 3 million passengers to nearly 60 destinations in 25 countries aboard its fleet of Airbus wide-body jets. The company employs approximately 2,000 people. Air Transat is a business unit of Transat A.T. Inc., an integrated international tour operator with more than 60 destination countries and that distributes products in over 50 countries.

Year-round, Transat Holidays provides its customers across Canada with a full range of holiday products. It offers sun vacations, with a choice of more than 140 hotels, mainly in the Caribbean, Mexico and Florida, along with an impressive array of flights, packages and tours to some 30 European destinations. Transat Holidays also offers more than 100 cruises all around the world.