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Air Canada, Canada's largest airline and flag carrier, has its corporate headquarters in Montreal, Quebec and was founded in 1937. The airline provides scheduled and charter air transportation for passengers and cargo to over 160 destinations and vacation packages to over 90 destinations. The company also provides maintenance services (under the name ACTS), ground handling, and training services to other airlines. Air Canada's main base is Montréal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport, however its largest hub is Toronto Pearson International Airport. Air Canada also uses Montréal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport as a European hub and Halifax International Airport as its Atlantic Canada hub , Vancouver International Airport as its hub for Pacific operations and Calgary International Airport as a focus city/secondary hub. In the past Montréal International Airport was the major hub for Air Canada. Montreal's economic decline in the late 1970s and 1980s had a significant effect on the airport's traffic as international flights shifted away from Dorval to Toronto Pearson but now Montreal has once again become a hub for Air Canada and other airlines.

Air Canada's regional partners include Air Canada Jazz, Air Labrador, Air Georgian, and Central Mountain Air. There is also a premium jet charter service for corporate clients and professional sports teams called Air Canada Jetz.

It is the 12th largest airline in the world, however, with record profits in 2005, the purchase of numerous new planes and the addition of new destinations, Air Canada might surpass other airlines to become the 9th largest by the end of 2007.

Air Canada has applied to the Australian, Canadian and U.S Governments to begin daily flights between Toronto and Sydney via Los Angeles with a Boeing 777-300ER starting the first quarter of 2007.

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History

The airline was created as a subsidiary of Canadian National Railway (CNR), Trans-Canada Airlines (TCA) on April 10, 1937, starting operations with a Lockheed 10A on September 1, 1937 carrying two passengers and mail from Vancouver to Seattle. The company was headquartered in Winnipeg which was also the site of the national maintenance base. In 1949 federal policy dictated the headquarters move to Montreal. Later the maintenance base also moved east which was a significant blow to western Canada. By 1964 TCA had grown to become Canada's national airline and in 1964 Jean Chrétien (who eventually became the Prime Minister of Canada from 1993 to 2004) submitted a private member's bill to change the name of the airline from Trans-Canada Airlines to Air Canada. This bill failed but it was resubmitted and passed. The name change was effective from January 1, 1965. In a late 1970s reorganization at CNR, Air Canada became an independent Crown corporation.

In 1987, Air Canada was the first airline in the world to have a fleet-wide non-smoking policy*. In 1989 Air Canada was completely privatised (ie. the federal government owned zero shares of the company).

Air Canada sold the en route Card business to Diners Club in 1992. Air Canada is a founding member of the Star Alliance, which was launched in May 1997. On September 2, 1998 pilots for Air Canada launched the company's first pilots' strike.

At the end of 1999 the Canadian government relaxed some of the aviation regulations, aimed at creating a consolidation of the Canadian airline industry. In January 2000 Air Canada acquired Canada's second largest air carrier, Canadian Airlines, subsequently merging the latter's operations into its own. As a result it became the world's twelfth largest commercial airline.

Air Canada codeshares services on other Star carriers, such as British Midland's Toronto to Manchester, United Kingdom flight. On April 1 2003, Air Canada filed for bankruptcy protection. Air Canada finally emerged from bankruptcy protection on September 30, 2004, 19 months later. ACE Aviation Holdings is the new parent company under which the reorganized Air Canada is held.

In October 2003 Air Canada became the second airline (after Canada 3000) to launch a non-stop flight between North America and India when it launched daily flights from Toronto Pearson International Airport to Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi.

On August 1, 2004 Air Canada converted the daily Hong Kong – Toronto Pearson International Airport flight AC15/16 with a stop at Vancouver to a non-stop flight taking the Great Circle route near the North Pole *. A total distance of 12,569 km (7810 miles) is flown using two new A340-500s—this was the first route to Hong Kong applying A340-500 ultra long-haul aircraft.

Modernization

In October 2004, the airline unveiled new in-flight service products and new aircraft livery. The new theme song, You and I, is sung by Céline Dion. On October 31, 2004, the last Air Canada Boeing 747 flight landed in Toronto, ending more than 30 years of 747 service with the airline. The remaining 747-400s which were previously in service have been superseded by the A340-500, which themselves are due for replacement.

On November 9, 2005, Air Canada announced that it would renew its widebody fleet over several years by purchasing a mixture of Boeing 777 and 787 Dreamliner aircraft."Aircraft General Terms Agreement between The Boeing Company and Air Canada", SEDAR (Note: 18MB PDF document) The order included a firm order for 32 aircraft (18 777s and 14 787s) plus options for 64 more aircraft (18 777s and 46 787s), totalling 96 aircraft. The first 777s are to begin arriving in 2006 and the first 787s will begin arriving in 2010. Among the 777s to be delivered to Air Canada are freighter versions, making Air Canada a launch customer of the 777 Freighter (along with Air France-KLM.) All of Air Canada's 777 aircraft (both -200LR and -300ER) will be powered by the GE90-115B engine, the world's most powerful jet engine, while their 787 aircraft will be powered by the GEnx engine.*

The order for the 777s will gradually phase out all A340s, including A340-300 and A340-500. In addition, the Boeing 787 will gradually replace the current Boeing 767 and A330-300. Air Canada has also begun to take delivery of Embraer 175 and 190 aircraft which will be used to expand their domestic and transborder routes. Older Airbus A319//A320 will be replaced with some of these new aircraft as delivery permits. *

Air Canada is wholly owned by ACE Aviation Holdings and employs 29,198 staff (at January 2005).

In November 2005 Air Canada stopped serving hot meals to all economy class seats for flights within Canada and the United States (except for certain Vancouver-Toronto flights inbound/outbound to Asia aswell as Toronto-Los Angeles flights and other other nonstop flights within North America longer than 5 hours, where hot meals are still served in economy). A selection of cold foods has been made available for purchase on those flights.

Fuel-Burn Reduction Innovations - Achieving New Aircraft Weight & Cost-Savings

Also in November 2005 Air Canada removed the paint and primer from (A Boeing 767-233ER, Tailfin No: 613), leaving a bare metal fuselage that would thereafter be maintained via aircraft metal polishing, in the same manner as Air Force aircraft in particular have used for decades, including the RCAF. The idea of operating commercial aircraft in a bare metal finish was one of two new fuel-burn reduction innovations developed independent of Air Canada as a low-cost measure to assist Canada's commercial airline industry in an era of rapidly escalating aviation fuel prices by Darren Locke, MBA (St. Mary's University Sobey School of Business - Halifax, NS - 2001) a Canadian airline operations and management analyst and also the Senior Airline Analyst at WINGS, Canada's national aviation magazine. Mr. Locke is well-known in Canadian airline management and operations, especially in his role as the creator and producer of the ONE ON ONE airline management and operations series at WINGS (www.wingsmagazine.com). He has also been extensively engaged in developing new ideas and innovations to achieve airline fuel-burn reduction via changes to airline management & operations practices, as opposed to fuel-burn reduction achieved through major aircraft engineering modifications, which while effective are both very costly and time-consuming to achieve. With airline fuel costs currently escalating dramatically due to to rapid increases in the price of oil, the reduction of aircraft weights and hence fuel-burn has become an extremely urgent priority for major North American and global airlines.

The removal of fin number 613's paint and primer was done to reduce fuel-burn costs by reducing the weight of the plane, with over 300 pounds (136 kg) of paint and primer being removed. While a substantial weight-reduction was achieved, however, the result was not as colorful or as aesthetically pleasing as aircraft liveries have traditionally been. Also, due to the materials used in the construction of Airbus aircraft as used by Air Canada this innovation could not be extended to Airbus fleet types. The experiment was not subsequently repeated with other aircraft in the Air Canada fleet and fin number 613 was scheduled to be repainted to the normal Air Canada livery in March 2006 *. However, this fuel-burn reduction innovation is quickly gaining momentum in the larger international airline industry as prices for Jet A-1 escalate rapidly with the decision subsequently made after the Air Canada experiment by Cathay Pacific to similarly remove all paint and primer from it's B747F cargo fleet with the exception of tail colors and company and civil registration lettering, air cargo being an area of the airline industry where aesthetic considerations are of relatively lesser importance than in passenger operations. Similar to Air Canada, Cathay Pacific also operates it's fleet over extremely vast distances, and thus reducing fuel-burn in the current price environment is essential to preserving the airline's profitability.

Air Canada proceeded quickly however to full implementation with the second major fuel-burn reduction innovation developed in Fall 2005 to assist Canada's airline industry by Darren Locke. This is the concept of incentivizing passengers to forego their full checked baggage allowance (currently 100 lbs for Air Canada's Economy-Class passengers) in return for a reasonable discount on the price of their ticket, currently applicable (July 2006) to Tango tickets at $24 return and rolled out by Air Canada as the "GO Discount." Mr. Locke developed this initiative based on his observation that passenger checked baggage constitutes the largest optional weight item on commercial aircraft, while at the same time producing zero revenue in-and-of-itself. He determined that while some passengers (for example, those headed on permanent moves) need their full checked baggage weight allocation, there are many others traveling on short-stay trips (long-weekend excursions, for example, or short-stay business trips) who do not.

Based on the steady escalation in airline fuel prices up to October 2005, a trend that has since continued, Mr. Locke prepared an extensive numerical analysis to prove his concept that offering a modest incentive to passengers to forego their checked baggage allowance would actually produce much greater returns for the small amount of airline revenue sacrificed in terms of the net aircraft weight reduction achieved, and thus fuel-burn reduction as well. For example, just one Air Canada Economy Class passenger taking advantage of the passenger incentivization fuel-burn reduction ("GO Discount") option and receiving the $24 discount on their return ticket in return for foregoing their checked baggage allowance would mean a potential weight savings of up to 100 lbs. All it would take then is just one passenger to achieve a potential 100 lb aircraft weight reduction, but typically a number of passengers will take this option, short-stay passengers as well as discount seekers who will choose to seek the price discount offered in return for not taking checked baggage.

Mr. Locke's airline management and operations innovation in this regard is of particular value to airline managers and executives across Canada and worldwide in that it gives them a flexible means beyond simple fuel surcharges and price increases of responding to extreme price escalations in aviation fuel as the world price of oil increases. As the cost for airline aviation fuel either increases or decreases with each increase/decrease in the price per barrel of oil, airline managers and executives can decide to either increase or decrease the amount of the incentive they are offering to their passengers to forego their normal checked baggage allowance as a condition of the type of fare they have purchased, thereby adjusting the average weight of their aircraft and hence fuel-burn. With oil prices having increased 4% alone in just the 5-day period between July 10th-14th, 2006, the value of this flexible response innovation in helping to respond to these oil price escalations and cut down on airline fuel-burn can be readily seen. Mr. Locke further determined as well that not only does passenger incentivization to forego checked baggage allowances achieve very substantial weight savings to the tune of hundreds if not thousands of pounds, thus making a substantial reduction in fuel-burn without the very substantial expenses associated with achieving improvements from aerospace engineering, it costs almost zero to implement as it can be integrated into existing advertising, which Air Canada has done; it meets the interests of every single stakeholder - customers, employees, and management - and reduces fuel costs and overall airline expenditures in the largest expense category (fuel) besides airline salaries; it can be applied across all airline aircraft types on every single flight, every single day without change or modification - "one size fits all"; it helps to cut down on repetitive strain back injuries caused by lifting heavy checked bagagge, the number one cause of time-off-work injuries for Air Canada and many other airline employees; it improves productivity by giving employees on the ramp and at the check-in counter more time to concentrate on additional tasks besides processing items of checked baggage; it helps to reduce costs associated with claims for damaged and lost checked baggage, and the expenses required to repatriate these items to their owners in their homes, at hotels, etc across Canada and around the world; it cuts down on damage and theft of items in baggage; it assists in reducing the frequency of "bulk-outs", situations in which aircraft have reached their weight limits and airlines are then forced to either offload passengers and baggage or start offering vouchers & incentives; it improves aircraft security, as with fewer items of checked baggage to be processed CATSA (the Canadian Air Transportation Security Authority) and other airport security providers have a better opportunity to scrutinize and inspect those items that are being loaded; and it also helps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions caused by burning extra fuel to move extra aircraft weight, which is very important particularly during night flying, since night flying has a more significant impact on the earth's atmosphere than day flying.

Incidents and accidents

Destinations

New routes

Fleet

The Air Canada fleet consists of 202 of the following aircraft (as of May 2006):

AircraftNo. of AircraftSeatsNotes
Airbus A319-10048120 (J14/Y106)Beginning fall 2006, new interiors will be installed with laptop power and on-demand PTV at every seat, All A319's to be completed March 2007
Airbus A320-20050140 (J20/Y120)In May 2006 a major interior facelift began with the installation of new interiors and seats with laptop power and on-demand PTV at every seat, all A320's to be completed by December 2006
Airbus A321-20013166 (J24/Y142)Beginning winter 2006, new interiors will be installed with laptop power and on-demand PTV at every seat will be installed, All A321's to be completed by June 2007
Airbus A330-3008274 (J42/Y232)Used mainly on transatlantic routes; personal suites with full length bed being introduced on all 767s and A330s in Executive First, PTVs being introduced in Economy Class; will be replaced by Boeing 787-8
Airbus A340-30010286 (J30/Y256)Used mainly on trans-pacific routes. Will be replaced by Boeing 777
Airbus A340-5002267 (J42/Y225)Used on Hong Kong–Toronto non-stop route over North Pole; PTVs in all seats; will be replaced by Boeing 777 in later years since this is a newer aircraft.
Boeing 767-200/200ER12207 (J24/Y183)New interiors and seats with laptop power and on-demand PTVs being introduced at every seat; will be replaced by Boeing 787-8 after 2010.
Boeing 767-300ER33203 (J30/Y173)
213 (J25/Y188)
212 (J30/Y182)
212 (J25/Y187)		Personal Suites with full length flat bed being introduced on all 767s and A330s in Executive First, PTVs being introduced in Economy Class; will be replaced by Boeing 787-8
Boeing 777-200LR(12 on order) Will eventually replace all Airbus A340s
Boeing 777-300ER(4 on order) Replacement for Boeing 747-400
Boeing 777F(2 on order) Launch customer along with Air France-KLM
Boeing 787-8(14 on order) Will eventually replace all Airbus A330s and Boeing 767s
Embraer 1751573 (J9/Y64) Features leather seats and PTVs at all seats
Embraer 1908
(37 more on order)		93 (J9/Y84) Features leather seats and PTVs at all seats

In March 2006 Air Canada's fleet was 9.8 years old. Air Canada has Boeing 777s and 787 Dreamliners on order to renew the widebody fleet.

Air Canada's Subsidiary, Air Canada Jazz has a separate fleet consisting of 135 of the following aircraft (as of May 2006):

AircraftNo. of AircraftSeatsNotes
Bombardier CRJ 7051575 (J10/Y65)
Bombardier CRJ 200ER33Y50
Bombardier CRJ 100ER25Y50
Bombardier Dash 8 10036Y37
Bombardier Dash 8 3002648-50

Last Air Canada CRJ 100ER flights operated April 30. All of Air Canada’s CRJs were transferred to Air Canada Jazz.

Historic fleet

  • Avro Lancastrian (1943-1947)
  • BAe 146-200
  • Boeing 727-200 (1974-1992)
  • Boeing 737-200 (1976-2004)
  • Boeing 747-100 -200 Combi -400 -400 Combi (1971-2004)

    Other facts of interest

    • During the mid-1990s, Air Canada repainted an Airbus A319 in the Trans-Canada retro livery.
    • Air Canada is the official carrier of the Toronto Raptors basketball team. One of its Airbus A320's was repainted to honour the team with the raptor dinosaur logo on an all-black fuselage, earning it the nickname "Dino-bus".
    • Air Canada's parent company, ACE Aviation Holdings Inc. is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the stock symbol, ACE.RV.
    • Air Canada unveiled a new aircraft colour scheme, and blue uniforms, on 19 October 2004. A Boeing 767-300 was painted in a silvery colour with a blue tint. The green tail has been replaced with the same silvery paint, but retains a version of the red maple leaf.
    • Air Canada was the winner of Best North American Airline in the 2005 World Airline Awards
    • Air Canada also is the creator of the Dreams Take Flight program which flies children with special needs to Disneyland for a day.

    Classes of Service

    Air Canada offers two classes of service on the majority of its flights, with single-class service offered on some short-haul Air Canada Jazz regional routings (Dash 8-100, Dash 8-300, CRJ).

    Upgraded amenities were due to start rolling out across the fleet (as detailed below) from Spring 2006, although delays have been encountered and the upgrade is now expected to fully commence in late 2006.

    Air Canada's premium international service is Executive First, offered on the vast majority of their transcontinental services. Executive First currently features a 2-2-2 or 1-2-2 seating arrangement of seats reclining to around 155 degrees. Audio-Video-On-Demand (AVOD) personal at-seat televisions are available on all Airbus A330 and A340 aircraft. Personal DVD players without AVOD are provided free of charge on all Boeing 767 aircraft to all Executive First customers. A premium 4-course meal service is offered, with "cart-less" service and food served in restaurant-style bowls or plates, as opposed to traditional casserole corningware. Beginning in the first quarter of 2006, Air Canada will replace the current Executive First seats on all its aircraft (except the A340s, which will be phased out) to individual lie-flat suites, in a 1-2-1 arrangement, giving customers greater privacy as well as a full length bed. This move is to compete with airlines such as Cathay Pacific and British Airways, who offer similar services.

    Air Canada's domestic premium service is Executive Class, a toned down version of their international service. Premium meals as well as individualized service is offered, but currently only mainscreen entertainment is available. However, with Air Canada's fleet and seating renewal, beginning in 2006 all aircraft will be refitted with new Executive Class seats with personal televisions. A similar meal service to Executive First is offered.

    Hospitality Service is Air Canada's version of economy class. Recently, meals have been removed on all North American flights to cut costs but meals are still offered on transcontinental and Hawaiian routings. Along with the Business Class seat renewals, Hospitality Class seats will be replaced with personal entertainment-equipped seats gradually over the next few years.

    The letter on a boarding pass maps to the named classes shown on the website, a rough breakdown as listed on the 2007 Aeroplan upgrade certificatesfollows: Tango (R, I, N, G, P, E, T), Tango Plus (B, H, V, Q , L, A), Latitude (M, U), Latitude Plus (Y) and Executive (J, C). It helps to know this mapping when booking through non-AirCanada agents.

    Entertainment

    On most Air Canada jets, there is a main screen (with overhead TVs on top of every few seats) which broadcasts recorded CBC news and other Hollywood movies. On the A340-500, every passenger has a TV, which is powered by a custom design Linux variant, and their enRoute program. Passengers can learn facts and figures of cities, and where they are using the GPS system installed on the plane. Furthermore, they can watch videos on demand, play games and listen to the Air Canada radio channels. Air Canada have launched the new state-of-the-art Thales i4500 in-flight entertainment system on their fleet of Embraer 175 and 190 aircraft. This in-seat entertainment system, which is being introduced fleet-wide, features 8.9-inch wide digital in-seat monitors and touch-screen controls offering audio and video on demand programming in every seat.

    Subsidiaries

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Air Canada".

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