Interesting times indeed and I echo the sentiments about the north of London area being VERY poorly served, especially since AC gave up on the MAN-YYZ 763 service some years back. (Did AC REALLY think people would just meekly switch to their LHR 'service'?????
No-one in their right mind wants to transit via LHR and routinely miss 2+ hour connections! Me - I immediately switched to KLM for MAN-AMS-YYZ flights.
Does anyone have the ETOPS data on the NG 737s? Not sure a stop at St Johns is the way to go... but is probably a very sensible way to test the water for now.
GO FOR IT, WESTJET!!!!!