Air Canada Boeing 767-300
Today, Air Canada announced that they would be retiring 79 of their aircraft in their release of their 1st quarter results. This also means that the airline had a net loss of $1.05 billion when compared to the year ago quarter that generated a positive net income of $345 million. This was the first time the airline didn't recieve an operating growth since 27 quarters ago. This will heavily impact Air Canada Rouge as we will see their Boeing 767, Airbus A319 and Embraer E190 aircraft leave the Canadian fleet.
In terms of their first quarter result, Calin Rovinescu, president and CEO of Air Canada said: “Our first quarter results reflect the severity and abruptness of the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on Air Canada, which started to be felt across the global airline industry in late January with the suspension by many carriers, including Air Canada, of services to China.”“Our solid January and February results gave us every encouragement that this performance would continue until the sudden and catastrophic impact of COVID-19’s onset in Europe and North America in early March.We are now living through the darkest period ever in the history of commercial aviation.”
The retirements
Despite this, the retirement of their Boeing 767s and Airbus A319s have been accelerated due to the Coronavirus outbreak. Most of these aircraft operate for Air Canada Rouge which means that they will now have to use just narrow body aircraft in the future. However, these retirements will reduce their carbon footprint and reduce its cost structure.
Air Canada used to have 193 aircraft at the end of March. 65 more aircraft belonged to Air Canada Rouge. These retirements will reduce their entire fleet by around 30%. With the majority of their 767 aircraft and A319 aircraft working for Air Canada Rouge, they also used three of their Airbus A319s to operate as Air Canada Jetz. This was used as a charter aircraft, therefore maybe allowing the aircraft to stay in the fleet for the time being.
The future
Air Canada Rouge will now have only 18 aircraft in their fleet. They will be operating the Airbus A320 and a321 aircraft. The airline is looking to take over Air Transat who flies Airbus A330 and 14 Airbus A321LR aircraft. This together can help make up for low capacity from the Boeing 767-300ERs. A lot more of the Air Canada Rouge routes would be taken over by Air Transat. However, this would leave limited room for expansion. The merge of these airlines do raise some questionable concerns. It would reduce competition and air travel accessibility in Canada. Although, during times like these, regulatory agencies could be willing to allow this to happen in order to stabilise the market.
Air Canada has ordered a total of 45 Airbus A220 aircraft with 4 of them already delivered and 14 more on the way. These aircraft will replace the Embraer E190s and the Airbus A319 fleet as they are much most fuel-efficient and cost friendly. This will help the airline during these strange times. The airline also axed their 11 Boeing 737 MAX 9 orders in March 2020. However, Air Canada are still keen on using their Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft once they are no longer grounded.
What are the airline doing at the moment?
There is still hope for the airline in the future according to their first quarter reports. Since March 2020, Air Canada stated that they have operated more than 500 all-cargo international flights. It plans to operate up to 150 cargo flights per week in the second quarter. They plan to do this their Boeing 787 and 777 aircraft, as well as four newly converted Boeing 777 and four converted Airbus 330 aircraft.
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