Bermuda's largest travel agency will next week seek to persuade bosses at budget airline Zoom to start operating flights to the Island from Canada.

Carl Paiva, chief executive officer of C-Travel, is heading to Ottawa on Monday for talks with executives at the company's head office.

He told The Royal Gazette: "We are going to be going over new opportunities and new approaches. Zoom already operates out of Canada to London, Manchester and Belfast. It's a matter of them identifying other markets and what we would like to do is help them identify them."

Zoom already flies from Edmonton, Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, Montreal, Ottawa and Halifax to the UK.

Asked if he would like to see the airline fly to the Island from those cities, Mr. Paiva said: "Absolutely. It's needed. It's certainly in our sights. I will go over what the best opportunities are with them. The bottom line is we see a lot of opportunities with Zoom over and above what's happening here."

Zoom's Scottish sister company of the same name launches its low-cost flights to Bermuda from London Gatwick on June 8, providing the Island's first alternative to British Airways on that route. An extended service to New York begins on June 21.

Mr. Paiva said residents of Bermuda were snapping up both the economy and premium economy seats to London.

"We are extremely pleased. They are coming in steadily every day and we are attracting a lot of new markets as well.

"We have been most interested to see our ethnic markets have jumped on extremely quickly. We have a lot of Indians here and they go through London to get home. It's such a saving on Zoom; the average saving is $700 per person."

He added that many Bermudians were opting for Zoom in order to stay with relatives in the UK or fly family onto the Island for a visit. Customers like the fact that they can be pre-assigned a seat, he added, unlike on BA.

Mr. Paiva said: "We have found our communications with Zoom have been absolutely superb. I think the most important thing now is to get it (the service) going. When people see it right here that makes a big difference."

Zoom will take delivery of its Boeing 767-300ER aircraft for the London to Bermuda route this Sunday.

Managing director Jonathan Hinkles said ticket sales were going well and that UK tour operators were reporting a great deal of interest in the Island from tourists who might normally visit the Caribbean.

"Everything is on track for June 8," he said. "We are seeing a number of passengers who we think are completely new to the Bermuda market.

"A number of tour operators have said before it's been very difficult to entice people to go to Bermuda as a break, because the flights are so expensive it makes the whole package outrageously expensive compared to the Caribbean.

"Now they are able to make Bermuda compete with some of the top-end Caribbean resorts because the pricing is right.

"People are now coming to Bermuda which from our point of view is absolutely great and from the Island's point of view, we hope it's viewed the same way."

He said Zoom was also getting bookings from passengers in other European countries, such as Holland and Switzerland.

"We are not expecting to fill the aircraft to Bermuda on any of our flights," said Mr. Hinkles. "But we are already seeing some flights through the summer period that are very heavily booked."