Air Canada to cut service to Rio, but not until after Olympics

Air Canada is cutting service to Rio de Janeiro this fall due to adrop in forecasted demand following the Olympic Games and current economic environment in Brazil.

The Montreal-based carrier said Thursday that starting in October, it will stop offering its three flights a week from Pearson airport in Toronto to Rio's Galeao'sairport. That service was launched to much fanfare in May of 2014.

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"Service adjustments are part of normal airline schedule planning and the number of flights across our network may vary at certain times of the year due to a number of factors including customer demand and aircraft availability," spokesperson Isabelle Arthur said.

The airline has no plans to cancel its daily flight offering to the other Brazilian city of Sao Paulo. In fact, the airline plans to use largerBoeing 787Dreamlinerswith 251 seats to replace the planes currently used on that route, which are older and smaller763-300ERs.

Air Canada passengers can still get to Rio via Air Canada codeshare partners such as Avianca, GOLand others.

The airline says other carriers are contemplating or adopting similar changes, but didn't specify which ones.