how to minimize time flying from Italy to Ontario (April 2024)?

Do your flight research on Google Flights, and set up price alerts. One way tickets are often expensive. I'd suggest trying multi- city, (open jaw ) tickets. Good luck!

My son lives in Ottawa, and while it is the capital of Canada, it is not a major flight hub, so flights in and out are much more limited compared to Toronto. Even Toronto doesn't seem to have a lot of direct flight options, but I did find one, plugging in a Friday in May on Google Flights (I don't know your dates), operated by Air Transat.

Be careful, though, booking a flight from Toronto to Ottawa. Some of them (especially Porter Air) may leave from Billy Bishop airport on Toronto Island instead of from YYZ.

I'm not sure where you've been looking, but Google Flights would have been a good place to start. I hope you can change your current ticket, because there are better and cheaper ways to go. A multicity ticket (instead of 2 one way tickets) out of Vancouver, into Rome and from Rome to Ottawa. Both legs would require at least one connecting flight. But I picked a couple of random days in June and found the outbound flight with a 2 hr connection in Toronto, and the return flight with a 2 hr connection in Montreal.

Go to Google flights and see what you can find for multicity (not one way) options. Hopefully your current one way ticket has the option for a change. Then book your ticket on the airline website, not a 3rd party site.

Hi Anita
We live in Ottawa and travelled to Italy this past fall. I can promise you that post-pandemic you will not find a direct flight to Ottawa from Europe except the Air France flight from Paris! However, there is an easy way to do it, courtesy of ViaRail.

We flew from Rome to Montreal and then took the train from the airport to Ottawa. But you say the train doesn’t go to the airport! You are right it doesn’t BUT Via Rail runs a free shuttle from the airport to Dorval Train Station and you board the train at Dorval. It was so easy to do I was astounded. Alternately, you could just take a taxi to the train station. It is not far.

You need to figure out how much buffer time you want to give yourself between your plane landing and your train departing if you want to book your train ticket. Dorval is a fully staffed train station, so you could buy your ticket once you get to the station. The shuttle bus does not have a ticketing system — you just line up, get your luggage on and take a seat. The flight to Montreal from Rome is 8 hours or so, the train to Ottawa from Montreal just over 90 minutes.

It was very easy and given the extortionate price of a plane ticket from Montreal to Ottawa well worth it. But if you want to fly the whole way, go to Montreal from Rome and then Montreal to Ottawa.

It is easy to get a flight Ottawa to Vancouver so you could fly home from our nation’s capital.

Hope this is useful!

Thanks to all who replied thus far with your suggestions

I do need to visit my friend in April, so that narrows things down
I am looking on google flights, and thanks about the heads up of Billy Bishop airport
Initially I liked the idea of flying into Montreal from Rome, and then taking the train, however I think in terms of hours, that won't save me any time either, but maybe it will save me a few $.

It appears I will have to visit from my friend another time, whether it turns out I go home from Italy to Vancouver and then fly from Vanc to Ottawa a week later, or visit just "later" in general, as in next year!