TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 1, 2024--
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240501890720/en/
The new route starts with daily roundtrip flights operated on the 132-seat Embraer E195-E2 aircraft. Passengers on this route will enjoy fast and free WiFi onboard, and a two-by-two configuration, meaning there are no middle seats on any Porter flight.
Porter offers genuine hospitality and an elevated onboard service for all passengers, including a selection of complimentary premium snacks and free beer and wine served in glassware. An expedited airport experience, ticketing flexibility, priority check-in, extra legroom seats, fresh, healthy meals and premium pre-mixed cocktails are part of the all-inclusive PorterReserve fare, and available à la carte with PorterClassic.
Montréal is also a convenient gateway to European destinations such as Rome, Amsterdam and Lisbon, thanks to Porter’s partnership with Air Transat. These connecting itineraries may be purchased as a single itinerary that includes seamless baggage transfers.
Service between Montréal and Vancouver was inaugurated in April, with Montréal-Calgary flights starting later this month. The launch of these three new western routes means that Porter will operate eight non-stop routes out of Montréal.
Porter also has existing daily flights connecting Edmonton with Toronto-Pearson and Ottawa.
Detailed schedules can be found on flyporter.com.
Quotes
“Porter's network continues to grow, with more nonstop service connecting Eastern and Western Canada than ever before. This is the second of three new connections between Montréal and the west launching this spring, which means passengers have more opportunity to enjoy Porter’s elevated economy experience.”
- Kevin Jackson, president, Porter Airlines
“We are excited for Porter's new route from YEG to Montréal, a top Canadian destination for business and leisure travellers to visit or access the airline's extensive Eastern Canadian network. Porter Airlines has been enthusiastically welcomed to the Edmonton region since becoming YEG's newest airline partner in 2023. Porter's continued expansion of non-stop routes from YEG demonstrates its commitment to connecting travellers to and from our region.”
- Myron Keehn, President & CEO, Edmonton International Airport
About Porter
Since 2006, Porter Airlines has been elevating the experience of economy air travel for every passenger, providing genuine hospitality with style, care and charm. Porter’s fleet of Embraer E195-E2 and De Havilland Dash 8-400 aircraft serves a North American network from Eastern Canada. Headquartered in Toronto, Porter is an Official 4 Star Airline® in the World Airline Star Rating®. Visit www.flyporter.com or follow @porterairlines on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
Porter Airlines has added its second Western Canada destination from Montréal, inaugurating service between Montréal-Trudeau International Airport (YUL) and Edmonton International Airport (YEG).
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Fresh from a day of delivering optimistic prognoses about how Ukraine would fare in the war with Russia despite gloomy news from the front lines, U.S. Secretary of State and amateur musician Antony Blinken may have thought he had the perfect upbeat song to perform with a Kyiv bar band on his fourth visit to the capital since the conflict began in 2022.
“I know this is a really, really difficult time,” Blinken told a packed crowd in the subterranean club Barman Dictat on Tuesday night.
“Your soldiers, your citizens, particularly in the northeast in Kharkiv, are suffering tremendously,” he said. “But they need to know, you need to know, the United States is with you, so much of the world is with you. And they’re fighting not just for a free Ukraine but for the free world, and the free world is with you, too.”
With those words and strumming a red guitar, Blinken and the local group 19.99 launched into Neil Young’s hit “Rockin’ in the Free World,” ostensibly to encourage Ukrainians to keep up the fight against Russia and hold to their Western aspirations, despite numerous battlefield setbacks that led President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a day later to cancel all his upcoming foreign trips.
With its refrain “Keep on rockin’ in the free world,” Young’s 1989 song sounds like it should be an homage to the glory of living in the West, uncompromised by communism or authoritarianism. In fact, as numerous social media critics noted, the tune is a lament about despair and misery caused by homelessness, drug addiction and poverty in the celebrated free world.
A charitable interpretation might be that Blinken chose to perform the song to underscore the importance of overcoming adversity by sticking to ones’ dreams of peace and freedom. After all, that had been the general theme of his remarks at events in Kyiv since his nearly pre-dawn arrival after an overnight train trip from Poland and it would continue to be on Wednesday.
“I’ve come to Ukraine with a message: You are not alone,” Blinken had told an audience of students and educators at the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute shortly before taking to Barman Dictat’s basement stage.
“Never bet against Ukraine,” he said at a Wednesday news conference with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.
But as Blinken sang the “keep on rockin’ in the free world” chorus, which is repeated 12 times in the 4-minute 40-second song, Russian troops were advancing near and around Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, and Zelenskyy was in the process of deciding to put off a planned trip to Spain and Portugal later this week to deal with the crisis.
Thus, any intended musical encouragement — in both content and venue — left at least some observers scratching their heads.
Kyiv-based analyst Oleksandr Kraiev, director of the North America program at the Ukrainian Prism think tank, said Blinken’s visit was welcome but pointed out that he and many Ukrainians were puzzled by his two-day stay, including his stop at Barman Dictat, which was seen as inappropriate by some, given the current fraught wartime climate.
“From my point of view, and generally speaking from the point of view of common Ukrainians, it was not a very appropriate sign to go to the bar to have a small song with our band,” he said, noting that Ukrainian military recruitment officers are known to go to bars and nightclubs to check documents and catch draft dodgers.
“So (for the) secretary of state of the United States also to go to a bar, to have a small concert for people who are blamed for not enlisting in the Ukrainian army,” Kraiev said, "it's not, let’s say, a catastrophe, it’s not a faux pas, but it’s something that is not very desirable from the point of view of common Ukrainians.”
U.S. officials with Blinken shrugged at the online criticism the secretary was receiving about his song choice and decision to sing at a bar. They also said he wouldn’t have done the event if he had thought it was inappropriate.
More broadly, the possible disconnect between the week’s battlefield developments and Blinken’s optimism was reflected in his activities and the size of his delegation.
Unlike on all of his three previous wartime trips to Kyiv, Blinken brought a full complement of staff and press with him. And while security was tight, he spent a good deal of time away from meetings with government officials, engaging with university students, civic leaders, local businesspeople and, of course, bar-goers. And, unlike on all of his previous visits except his last visit in September, he chose to spend the night in the city.
Yet, it may be “Rockin’ in the Free World,” its chorus and opening stanza — “There’s colors on the street; Red, white and blue; People shufflin’ their feet; People sleepin’ in their shoes; But there’s a warnin’ sign; on the road ahead; There’s a lot of people sayin’; we’d be better off dead.” — that the visit is remembered for.
As the band hit the opening notes, Blinken commented wryly: “I don’t know if we can pull this off.” And, then, according to the official State Department transcript: “(Music was played.)”
Samya Kullab contributed.
From left, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, US Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Tom Sullivan and Spokesperson Matt Miller visit the Barman Dictat bar in Kyiv, Tuesday, May 14, 2024. Blinken sought Tuesday to rally the spirits of glum Ukrainians facing a fierce new Russian offensive, assuring them that they are not alone and that billions of dollars in American military aid on its way to the country would make a “real difference” on the battlefield. (Brendan Smialowski/Pool photo via AP)
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, left, performs "Rockin' in the Free World" with members of The 1999 band at the Barman Dictat bar in Kyiv, Tuesday, May 14, 2024. Blinken sought Tuesday to rally the spirits of glum Ukrainians facing a fierce new Russian offensive, assuring them that they are not alone and that billions of dollars in American military aid on its way to the country would make a “real difference” on the battlefield. (Brendan Smialowski/Pool photo via AP)
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken performs "Rockin' in the Free World" with members of The 1999 band at the Barman Dictat bar in Kyiv, Tuesday, May 14, 2024. Blinken sought Tuesday to rally the spirits of glum Ukrainians facing a fierce new Russian offensive, assuring them that they are not alone and that billions of dollars in American military aid on its way to the country would make a “real difference” on the battlefield. (Brendan Smialowski/Pool photo via AP)
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visits the Barman Dictat bar in Kyiv, Tuesday, May 14, 2024. Blinken sought Tuesday to rally the spirits of glum Ukrainians facing a fierce new Russian offensive, assuring them that they are not alone and that billions of dollars in American military aid on its way to the country would make a “real difference” on the battlefield. (Brendan Smialowski/Pool photo via AP)
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, center, performs "Rockin' in the Free World" with members of The 1999 band at the Barman Dictat bar in Kyiv, Tuesday, May 14, 2024. Blinken sought Tuesday to rally the spirits of glum Ukrainians facing a fierce new Russian offensive, assuring them that they are not alone and that billions of dollars in American military aid on its way to the country would make a “real difference” on the battlefield. (Brendan Smialowski/Pool photo via AP)
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken performs "Rockin' in the Free World" with members of The 1999 band at the Barman Dictat bar in Kyiv, Tuesday, May 14, 2024. Blinken sought Tuesday to rally the spirits of glum Ukrainians facing a fierce new Russian offensive, assuring them that they are not alone and that billions of dollars in American military aid on its way to the country would make a “real difference” on the battlefield. (Brendan Smialowski/Pool photo via AP)
