Canadian Airport Thread II

[Ozabald]

Originally Posted by thenoflyzone

Put all the — aside for a moment guys.

This CEO has been at the helm of AC for 5 years now. He was in hot water for this before. He said he would try to learn french. It's not that hard. Apparently he had 300 hours of french lessons.

2 of the pilots flying under your banner died. One, the captain, was a french Canadian. You say a 4 minute speech. You serioulsy can't, after 5 years, say 1 or 2 (well rehearsed) sentences in french to honor the fallen captain?

I find that ridiculous. The reason is obvious. He just doesn't give a —.

This is the problem. A bit of common sense would have avoided this. He clearly doesn't have any. And let's not even talk about his poor handling of the AC strike last summer. He's an idiot. He needs to go. There are senior VP's below him better suited for the job.



He's not like most CEO's. He's the CEO of the only airline in Canada bound by the Air Canada Public Participation Act.

https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/A-10.1/

Which means the entire airline, including the CEO, needs to follow mandatory public-interest obligations, one of which mandates that Air Canada remain subject to the Official Languages Act, requiring services in both French and English.



Thye have every right to harrass the CEO of Air Canada. Read above.

All the while, the feds are silent as Quebec continues its suppression on the use and visibility of English.

[Ozabald]

Originally Posted by harls

The plane has 'Air Canada' emblazoned on it.

At the very least, the CEO of the federally mandated bilingual airline could have at least tried to say more than 'bonjour' and 'merci' at a press conference detailing the death of two francophone pilots.

Strictly speaking, it was not an Air Canada plane. The plane is owned by and the flight was operated by Jazz Aviation, part of Chorus Aviation headquartered in Halifax. Their CEO spoke in English only after the incident; nary a peep of faux outrage from Carney and the Quebec ilk.

[hehehe]

Originally Posted by Ozabald

Strictly speaking, it was not an Air Canada plane. The plane is owned by and the flight was operated by Jazz Aviation, part of Chorus Aviation headquartered in Halifax. Their CEO spoke in English only after the incident; nary a peep of faux outrage from Carney and the Quebec ilk.

Sure, but it was operated for Air Canada and the Air Canada CEO, not the Jazz one, was the one who made a video we're talking about. They marketed the flight and sold it, and it was a YUL originating flight so it does seem insensitive not to make a French video about it.

[Surrealplaces]

Originally Posted by thenoflyzone

He's not like most CEO's. He's the CEO of the only airline in Canada bound by the Air Canada Public Participation Act.

https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/A-10.1/

Which means the entire airline, including the CEO, needs to follow mandatory public-interest obligations, one of which mandates that Air Canada remain subject to the Official Languages Act, requiring services in both French and English.

I says 'services' need to be in French and English, which makes sense, but I don't see anything specifically saying a speech by the CEO needs to be in both languages.

The smart thing would have been to have it done in both languages, but at the same time people are making it a bigger issue than it is.

[Chocolite]

The — is the people whose noses are out of joint because a CEO didn’t give a speech in French, something typical of all CEOs in 2026. With their noses out of joint the response is to cling to a gray area of some archaic agreement from 60 years ago.

Originally Posted by thenoflyzone

Put all the — aside for a moment guys.

This CEO has been at the helm of AC for 5 years now. He was in hot water for this before. He said he would try to learn french. It's not that hard. Apparently he had 300 hours of french lessons.

2 of the pilots flying under your banner died. One, the captain, was a french Canadian. You say a 4 minute speech. You serioulsy can't, after 5 years, say 1 or 2 (well rehearsed) sentences in french to honor the fallen captain?

I find that ridiculous. The reason is obvious. He just doesn't give a —.

This is the problem. A bit of common sense would have avoided this. He clearly doesn't have any. And let's not even talk about his poor handling of the AC strike last summer. He's an idiot. He needs to go. There are senior VP's below him better suited for the job.



He's not like most CEO's. He's the CEO of the only airline in Canada bound by the Air Canada Public Participation Act.

https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/A-10.1/

Which means the entire airline, including the CEO, needs to follow mandatory public-interest obligations, one of which mandates that Air Canada remain subject to the Official Languages Act, requiring services in both French and English.



Thye have every right to harrass the CEO of Air Canada. Read above.

[J81]

Originally Posted by thenoflyzone

Politicians have been using tragedy to score political points for centuries.

Besides, in this particlar case, it's not quite that, as leaders/ministers from several political parties - both federal and provincial - condemned the CEO for his lack of french. So who really scored the points? All of them?

Whether this kind of stuff is seen as true leadership or just exploitation usually depends on the audience's political - or in this case, linguistic - perspective.

I'm trilingual. English and French are my second and third languages. I'm fluent in all 3. So if you were to ask me if the politicians are exploiting the situation, I would say no. All the CEO had to do was learn a bit of french and sew a couple of french sentences together during a 4 minute speech. It's not rocket science. He didn't do it. He's an idiot. Not the politicians.

If you were to ask the same question to a unilingual anglophone who lives outside of Quebec, he will most likely give you a different answer.

Politicians in Quebec. Not anywhere else because nobody really gives two shits whether the CEO of Air Canada spoke french in his address except people pandering to Quebec II think youre missing the point. He didnt have to do it nor did politicians have to draw attention away from those two young pilots for political theater. They are indeed the real idiots.

[thenoflyzone]

Porter received approval to operate scheduled flights to Aruba, Barbados and the Dominican Republic.

https://otc-cta.gc.ca/eng/ruling/a-2026-52
https://otc-cta.gc.ca/eng/ruling/a-2026-50
https://otc-cta.gc.ca/eng/ruling/a-2026-51

[Dominion301]

Originally Posted by thenoflyzone

Porter received approval to operate scheduled flights to Aruba, Barbados and the Dominican Republic.

https://otc-cta.gc.ca/eng/ruling/a-2026-52
https://otc-cta.gc.ca/eng/ruling/a-2026-50
https://otc-cta.gc.ca/eng/ruling/a-2026-51

Safe to say BGI, AUA, PUJ and maybe POP and a couple other DR airports will get added this winter. YOW has never had service before to BGI and had a weekly winter Sunquest charter for a couple of years in the 90s.

[Dominion301]

YHZ's February pax stats with transborder numbers getting slaughtered (that almost -44% is not a typo):

February:

Sector / 2026 / 2025 / 2019 / % Change vs 25 / vs 19
Dom: 183,724 / 172,963 / 198,298 / +6.2% / -7.3%
TB: 17,095 / 30,486 / 25,944 / -43.9% / -34.1%
Int'l: 36,333 / 38,126 / 30,266 / -4.7% / +20.0%
TTL: 237,152 / 241,575 / 254,508 / -1.8% / -6.8%

YTD

Sector / 2026 / 2025 / 2019 / % Change vs 25 / vs 19
Dom: 372,472 / 353,660 / 412,817 / +5.3% / -9.8%
TB: 34,484 / 55,542 / 45,676 / -37.9% / -24.5%
Int'l: 66,467 / 66,470 / 44,558 / 0.0% / 49.2%
TTL: 473,423 / 475,672 / 503,051 / -0.5% / -5.9%

[MonctonRad]

Maritimers take boycotts very seriously.

Probably the main reason why the decline is so precipitous for YHZ is that the proportion of leisure travellers on the trans border routes is probably disproportionately higher than for Toronto or Calgary where business travel is presumably more important.

[JonToms]

Originally Posted by Dominion301

YHZ's February pax stats with transborder numbers getting slaughtered (that almost -44% is not a typo):

February:

Sector / 2026 / 2025 / 2019 / % Change vs 25 / vs 19
Dom: 183,724 / 172,963 / 198,298 / +6.2% / -7.3%
TB: 17,095 / 30,486 / 25,944 / -43.9% / -34.1%
Int'l: 36,333 / 38,126 / 30,266 / -4.7% / +20.0%
TTL: 237,152 / 241,575 / 254,508 / -1.8% / -6.8%

YTD

Sector / 2026 / 2025 / 2019 / % Change vs 25 / vs 19
Dom: 372,472 / 353,660 / 412,817 / +5.3% / -9.8%
TB: 34,484 / 55,542 / 45,676 / -37.9% / -24.5%
Int'l: 66,467 / 66,470 / 44,558 / 0.0% / 49.2%
TTL: 473,423 / 475,672 / 503,051 / -0.5% / -5.9%

YHZ’s transborder traffic has definitely been hit hard for the first two months of the year. The cancellation of Porter’s TPA flights, which were up to six per week in the spring of 2025, and a reduction in their MCO flights from daily service in the spring of 2025 to between four and six flights per week this season has made a major negative impact on traffic. Air Canada’s TPA flights also went from three per week in the spring of 2025 to one flight per week this season. Air Transat also cut their FLL flights from up to three flights per week in the spring of 2025 to one flight per week this season. Looking forward to the summer season, YHZ’s transborder traffic should be more stable or even increase somewhat with the introduction of WestJet’s 737 Max daily service to DTW along with increases on many services offered by United Airlines, American Airlines and Delta Airlines. IAD, BOS, ORD, LGA and EWR will all see service increases this coming season.

[whatnext]

Linguistic politics claim another victim:

Air Canada CEO to retire after condolence-video controversy
20 minutes ago
Nadine Yousif
Senior Canada reporter

The CEO of Air Canada will retire later this year, after being criticised for failing to speak French in a condolence video following last week's fatal collision at LaGuardia Airport that killed two of the airline's pilots.….

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgme8xy2rl1o

[Ozabald]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Linguistic politics claim another victim:

Air Canada CEO to retire after condolence-video controversy
20 minutes ago
Nadine Yousif
Senior Canada reporter

The CEO of Air Canada will retire later this year, after being criticised for failing to speak French in a condolence video following last week's fatal collision at LaGuardia Airport that killed two of the airline's pilots.….

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgme8xy2rl1o

Somewhat ironic that Carney and the Quebec ilk do not hold the GG to the same level of linguistic purity.

[ToxiK]

Originally Posted by Ozabald

Somewhat ironic that Carney and the Quebec ilk do not hold the GG to the same level of linguistic purity.

She should speak French. But I dont think we should have a representative of a king at all in Canada. The post should be abolished.

[Dominion301]

Originally Posted by Ozabald

Somewhat ironic that Carney and the Quebec ilk do not hold the GG to the same level of linguistic purity.

The GG is bilingual - English and Inuktitut. On top of that she’s actually made a major effort to learn French and will speak more than two words of French.

Originally Posted by ToxiK

She should speak French. But I dont think we should have a representative of a king at all in Canada. The post should be abolished.

That’ll never happen. Constitutionally it’s almost impossible, along with all the Indigenous treaties that are with the Crown. If you want a republic, go check out the cesspool to the south of us. It’s no coincidence that the majority of the most democratic states are constitutional monarchies - Canada, Australia, NZ, Sweden, Denmark, etc.

[casper]

Originally Posted by Ozabald

Somewhat ironic that Carney and the Quebec ilk do not hold the GG to the same level of linguistic purity.

I think if he made his remarks in Inuktitut and English, the reaction would have been very different.

[hollywoodcory]

YYC February 2026 Stats

Domestic: 858,074 +2.7% (YTD: 1,751,556 +2.5%)
Transborder: 234,179 -12.1% (YTD: 474,722 -9.8%)
International: 224,050 +10.0% (YTD: 462,517 +11.2%)

February 2026 total: 1,316,303 +0.8%
2026 YTD: 2,688,795 +1.4%

[hipster duck]

Rousseau may have left for other reasons which we will never know, but resigning because of a culture war issue makes him a corporate martyr. With oil prices 30% higher, and increasing swathes of the world closed for air traffic, running an airline just got a whole lot harder, and if I had a convenient way to head for the exit without damaging my own reputation, I'd probably do it too.

Anyway, best of luck to Air Canada for conducting a corporate search for a CEO of a flag carrier airline where one of the job requirements is French fluency. You can probably count the number of people who meet these criteria on one hand, and you probably have to pay them millions more to consider leaving. Benjamin Smith was one such candidate, who moved up the ranks within AC, but he's now the CEO for Air France-KLM.

[MonctonRad]

And this is the issue.

What is the most important quality in running a world class airline - corporate acumen or bilingualism.

I would argue the former. Some on this forum would disagree and suggest the overarching concern is the quality of their French language skills (because we all know that if the president of AC attempted valiantly to offer condolences in butchered French, that the howls of outrage would be horrific).

[Ozabald]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

And this is the issue.

What is the most important quality in running a world class airline - corporate acumen or bilingualism.

I would argue the former. Some on this forum would disagree and suggest the overarching concern is the quality of their French language skills (because we all know that if the president of AC attempted valiantly to offer condolences in butchered French, that the howls of outrage would be horrific).

I nominate Justin Trudeau as the next CEO of Air Canada. Though he has no clue about how to operate an airline, he is bilingual and understands social media. That all which matters.

Curious if all the AC board of directors speak French. If not, they should resign. I wonder if Rob Fyfe, board member from Auckland, NZ speaks French?