Air Canada

Air Canada

Air Canada is the largest complete-service airline of Canada. It is also the biggest provider of scheduled passenger services in the Canadian market, the Canada-U.S. trans-border market and also in the international market. Together with its domestic partner Jazz, Canada caters to the needs of approximately 32 million customers annually. It offers direct flights to over 170 destinations in five continents. Canada is a founder member of Star Alliance(TM), the world's most wide-ranging air transportation network.

The predecessor of Air Canada was Trans-Canada Air Lines (TCA). It started its first flight on September 1, 1937. By 1964, TCA grew to become Canada's national airline and changed its name to Canada. The airline became completely privatized in 1989. In 2000, Canada took over Canadian Airlines International. At present, Canada is the 13th largest commercial airline in the world, with roughly 24,700 full-time equivalent employees. The shares of Canada are traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) under the symbol "AC-B.TO".

In July 2009, Canada bought the 18th and final Boeing 777 aircraft, which had a especially designed livery from nose to tail as a symbol of recognition of the role of the airline as the official Airline of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. With the delivery of this 777-300ER, Canada finished its fleet-wide renewal program. The carrier has new seats, industry-leading seat-back personal entertainment systems with hundreds of hours of movies, TV programs and music available on demand, and also standard 110V electrical outlets for all customers. At the same time as Air Canada got Boeing 777, it also introduced the first lie-flat beds of any North American carrier in business class across its international fleet. In 2008, Canada got its 60th and final new Embraer aircraft, offering a reliable onboard product fleet wide. Air Canada has the youngest, most fuel-efficient fleet of any North American network carrier, with an average age of aircraft of only 9 years.

Air Canada has an wide-ranging global network, with focal points in four major Canadian cities (Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and Calgary), offering scheduled passenger service directly to 58 Canadian cities, 55 destinations in the United States and 58 cities in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Australia, the Caribbean, Mexico and South America. Canada and its regional affiliate Jazz carries out roughly 1,370 scheduled flights each day on average.

In 2009, Canada started on its new, non-stop services between Fort McMurray-Vancouver in January, Halifax-Orlando in February, and Toronto-Sydney, NS in May. Canada also commenced Montreal-Martinique and Montreal-Geneva and included three new non-stop routes from Calgary to London (Ontario), San Diego and Portland.