Business Class Flights to Montreal from the UK — from £2,349

Montreal is one of the better-connected Canadian cities from Britain — three airlines fly it and two of them go from Heathrow. It is also the one Canadian destination on our books where the fare ladder turns upside down: Birmingham is the cheapest departure and London is only third.

Business Class starts from £2,349 return. The rest of the country sits under Business Class flights to Canada, and the wider programme under Business Class flights from the UK.

Direct flights from the UK to Montreal

Montreal-Trudeau (YUL) is an Air Canada hub and handled 22.4 million passengers in 2025. That combination — a hub airline, a British flag carrier competing with it on the same airport pair, and a third operator from a second London airport — is a healthier picture than most Canadian destinations offer.

The practical consequence is competition. Two carriers on Heathrow to Montreal means two sets of availability, two schedules and two fare structures for the same journey, which is the single biggest reason a fare moves in your favour.

No UK airport outside London has a Montreal nonstop. Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow and Newcastle all connect — which makes the fare pattern below genuinely odd.

Business Class to Montreal from each UK airport

Per passenger, return. Excl. taxes and carrier charges. Subject to availability.

Birmingham is cheapest, Manchester is second, and London — the only departure with a direct flight — sits third. It is a genuine inversion and it is worth being clear about what it does and does not mean.

What it does not mean is that Birmingham is the better trip. The London fare buys a nonstop. The Birmingham fare buys a connection. Those are different journeys and the cheaper one is longer.

What it does mean is that if you live nearer Birmingham or Manchester than Heathrow, the usual calculation does not apply here. Normally a regional traveller weighs a modest saving against an extra sector. At Montreal you would be paying more to get yourself to London, on top of the cost and time of getting there.

The gap is not enormous in either direction, which is the honest summary. Nobody should restructure a trip around it. But it does mean a Birmingham or Manchester departure deserves a straight look rather than being dismissed, and it means we will not simply quote you London because London has the nonstop.

Glasgow and Newcastle are the two dearest and they connect. From Scotland or the north east, ask us to price a London departure alongside — the direct flight may be worth the domestic leg.

Which of the three airlines?

We are not going to tell you one of these is better than the others, because the honest position is that the choice usually makes itself.

Air Canada runs Montreal as a hub, which matters most if you are going beyond the city. Onward connections across Canada and into the United States are deepest on the airline that bases itself there, and staying on one carrier keeps the whole journey under one booking.

British Airways puts a second year-round operator on the identical airport pair. That is the thing to appreciate here — competition on a route is what makes a fare move, and Montreal has it where most Canadian destinations do not.

Air Transat gives you Gatwick instead of Heathrow, which is the deciding factor for a great many people in the south east, and irrelevant to everyone else. It is seasonal, so it either covers your dates or it does not.

We will not publish seat or cabin descriptions for these services, because we have not verified them and they change. What we will do is check the actual availability on your dates across all three and tell you what is genuinely on offer.

Where Montreal sits among the Canadian destinations we sell

Montreal is the dearest of our Canadian destinations in Business Class, and it is fair to ask why, given it is also one of the shortest crossings.

The answer is that fares are set route by route rather than by distance, and a short flight is not automatically a cheap one. What the Montreal fare buys you is a nonstop served by three airlines, a time difference at the friendly end of the Canadian range, and a crossing that does not take a day out of your life at either end.

If price is the only consideration and the Canadian city is open, Ottawa is several hundred pounds lower and also has a nonstop — and it is close enough to Montreal that the two are frequently interchangeable for a trip into eastern Canada. That is worth knowing before you fix on a city.

What the whole journey costs, not just the flight

The published fare is the flight. On a route where four of five departures connect, the rest of the journey deserves a moment.

From London. You pay the third-cheapest fare and get the only nonstop, on any of three airlines. Nothing to add, nothing to connect, no second aircraft. On this route that is what the London premium buys, and it is a modest premium.

From Birmingham or the Midlands. The cheapest fare on the board, and you would be connecting rather than flying direct. Weigh it against a London departure plus the cost and time of reaching Heathrow with enough margin to be relaxed. For most Midlands travellers the Birmingham fare wins on money and loses on convenience, and which matters more is a personal question rather than a pricing one.

From Manchester. Second cheapest, and the same logic applies with a little more force — Manchester is far enough from Heathrow that the domestic leg is a real undertaking rather than a formality.

From Scotland. Glasgow is among the two dearest departures and it connects, so you are paying more for a longer journey. This is the case where pricing a London departure alongside is most worth doing, because you may find you can have the nonstop for something close to the same money.

For a business traveller. Take the Heathrow nonstop unless there is a strong reason not to. On a trip with a fixed commitment at the far end, removing a connection removes the main thing that goes wrong, and the fare difference here is too small to buy that risk back.

How much is Business Class to Montreal from the UK?

Business Class to Montreal starts from £2,349 return per passenger and subject to availability. Other cabins on the same route: Economy from £736, Premium Economy flights from the UK from £1,478, and First Class flights from the UK from £4,869.

The Economy fare is strikingly low for a transatlantic crossing, which makes the ladder up to the front of the aircraft a long one. Premium Economy sits at around two thirds of the Business fare — a narrower gap than most of our Canadian destinations, which weakens its case rather than strengthening it.

The First Class fare here is the highest in Canada

We would rather tell you this than let you discover it in a quote. Montreal has the highest First Class fare of any Canadian destination we sell, and the widest step up from Business — more than double.

Look down that table and the contrast is stark. Edmonton's First fare is a fraction over half of Montreal's, on a Business fare that is itself lower. The same cabin, the same country, an entirely different proposition.

So our advice on Montreal is plain: Business Class is the sensible cabin here. If First Class is what you want and the city is negotiable, the Canadian ladder offers far better value elsewhere. If Montreal is fixed and First is fixed, we will price it — but you should know where it sits before you ask.

Five hours behind

Montreal is five hours behind the UK for most of the year. Quebec observes daylight saving as Britain does, so the gap holds steady except for short windows each spring and autumn when the two countries switch on different dates.

Five hours is at the friendly end of our Canadian programme. The eastern cities share it and the western ones are a good deal worse, so if the time difference is what worries you, Montreal is one of the easier answers. A Montreal morning overlaps properly with a British afternoon, so a working day at each end genuinely meets in the middle rather than brushing past.

Westbound you gain the hours and arrive with the afternoon in front of you. Eastbound you lose them overnight, landing in Britain in the morning — the harder half, and the sector the cabin is really for.

Compared with a seven or eight hour shift further west, the recovery is mild. Most people find a five-hour adjustment settles within a day, which changes what you can sensibly put in the diary for arrival day.

How long does the flight take?

We did not sample a block time for Montreal and will not publish one we did not see.

What we can say is that from Heathrow it is a single sector each way with no connection, on any of the three carriers' routings. From Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow or Newcastle, add a connection — which, given that those fares are not higher, is the trade you are making.

Montreal is among the shorter transatlantic crossings, sitting on the eastern side of the continent. That is part of why it is a manageable trip and part of why the time shift is mild.

Business Class, First Class or Premium Economy?

On a five-hour shift the argument for Business is narrower than on a long-haul route, and we will not pretend otherwise. Westbound in daylight, on a crossing of this length, Premium Economy is a defensible choice — although at around two thirds of the Business fare it is saving you less than it would elsewhere.

The return is where Business earns it. An overnight eastbound that hands back five hours and delivers you to Britain in the morning is the sector worth being comfortable on, and if you buy the cabin one way, buy it for that one.

Entry requirements for Canada

• You need an eTA to fly to Canada — an Electronic Travel Authorisation. For short stays of up to six months it is what applies rather than a visa.
• You also need an eTA to transit through Canada by air, even without leaving the airport.
• You do not need one arriving by land or sea — relevant here, because Montreal is close enough to the United States border that some itineraries cross it.
• Your passport must be valid for the length of your planned stay. On a connecting itinerary, many transit countries require six months.
• Border officials may ask for proof of a return ticket and sufficient funds.
• Children travelling alone or with one parent need a letter of consent from the non-travelling parents or guardians.

If you have a criminal record or have been arrested, contact the Canadian High Commission before you travel. It may affect whether you are allowed to enter, and resolving admissibility takes time — it is not a border-desk conversation.

If you connect, book it on one ticket

Four of the five UK departures involve a connection, so this applies to most travellers here.

The point carries extra weight at Montreal because the regional fares are not a saving. Splitting the booking to shave a little off a fare that is already cheaper than London's would be taking on real risk for nothing at all.

Arriving, and the first hours on the ground

A five-hour westbound shift is the gentlest transatlantic arrival there is, and it changes what arrival day can hold.

You land with the afternoon still ahead of you and your body insisting it is early evening. That is a far easier gap to bridge than the seven or eight hours the western Canadian cities ask of you, and the standard advice — stay up until local bedtime rather than sleeping on arrival — is much less of an ordeal here.

Montreal-Trudeau is an Air Canada hub handling well over twenty million passengers a year, so it is a substantial airport rather than a regional one. On the Heathrow nonstop you clear Canadian immigration at Montreal itself. On a connecting itinerary you clear it at whichever Canadian airport you reach first, with the onward flight time running — so leave a generous transfer rather than the tightest one the booking system will sell you.

Unlike most transatlantic destinations, a morning meeting the day after you land is a reasonable thing to schedule here. We would still not put anything critical in the first few hours, but the trip does not need a recovery day built into it.

What to check before you book

• Your dates against the Gatwick service. Air Transat's Montreal flights are seasonal. If Gatwick matters to you, the dates decide whether it is available at all.
• Both Heathrow carriers, separately. Air Canada and British Airways price the same pairing independently, and on a competitive route that is where a fare moves.
• The regional fares, honestly. Birmingham and Manchester are cheaper than London here. That is unusual enough that it is worth confirming rather than assuming.
• Your eTA. Needed to fly, and needed to transit Canada by air on a connecting itinerary.
• Passport validity. Valid for the length of your stay for Canada, but six months for many countries you might transit.

Who this destination suits, and who it does not

It suits you if you want a transatlantic trip that does not wreck your week. Five hours is a mild shift, the crossing is among the shorter ones, and three airlines fly it.

It suits you particularly if you are near Birmingham or Manchester, because for once the regional fare is genuinely the cheaper one rather than a compromise.

It suits you particularly if you need to stay in contact with a UK office. The overlap between a Montreal working day and a British one is real, which is not true of the western Canadian destinations.

It suits you less if First Class is what you are after. The fare here is the highest in our Canadian programme and more than double the Business fare, and the same cabin is far better value to several other Canadian cities.

What to settle before you ask for a quote

• Which UK airport are you nearest? Birmingham and Manchester are cheaper than London here, which reverses the usual advice.
• Do you want the nonstop? Only London has one, and it costs a little more rather than a little less.
• Which of the three airlines? Two fly Heathrow year-round; the Gatwick service is seasonal, so it depends on your dates.
• Business or First? We would steer you to Business on this route and can show you why in the numbers.
• Do you have your eTA? Needed to fly and also to transit Canada by air.

Getting a Business Class quote for Montreal

Send us your dates, your nearest UK airport and who is travelling. We will check Air Canada and British Airways separately on the Heathrow nonstop, see whether the seasonal Gatwick service covers your dates, price the Birmingham and Manchester departures honestly against London rather than assuming London wins, and tell you plainly where First Class sits before you commit to it.