Hello everyone, my name is Alex, and today, I’d like to talk about the fleet of one
of North America’s largest airlines.
Air Canada was founded in 1937 as Trans-Canada Air Lines, and has since grown to serve over
200 destinations on 6 continents.
Canada’s flag carrier and its subsidiaries collectively operate well over 300 aircraft,
and I thought that this would be an interesting topic to discuss for today’s video.
Yeah, quick extra note before we start - I began working on this video a few weeks ago
and then the whole Air Transat thing was announced.
If the deal does go through, well, consider this the pre-merger fleet.
If not, this is Air Canada’s fleet as of the date that this was posted.
Starting off with Air Canada Express, which is their regional brand.
There are a few different companies who operate short flights on behalf of Air Canada, through
Capacity Purchase Agreements.
These include Jazz Aviation, Sky Regional Airlines, and Exploits Valley Air Services,
or EVAS Air.
Air Georgian also operates a few flights under the Express banner.
However, earlier this year, it was announced that Air Georgian’s contract had been suspended.
For now, Georgian continues to fly some of their CRJ aircraft.
These will be transferred to Jazz Aviation eventually.
The Air Canada Express fleet is made up of the following aircraft, flying with their
respective operators.
6 Beechcraft 1900D aircraft, operated by EVAS Air.
10 De Havilland Canada Dash 8-100s, operated by Jazz Aviation.
25 De Havilland Canada Dash 8-300s,
44 Bombardier Q400s,
26 Bombardier CRJ-100/200s, operated by both Jazz and Air Georgian.
21 Bombardier CRJ-900s, with 3 more being added,
And finally, 25 Embraer 175s, which are operated by Sky Regional.
Moving on to Air Canada Rouge.
Rouge was launched in December of 2012 as the leisure and low cost subsidiary of Air Canada.
Rouge primarily operates flights to sun destinations, as well as some lower-yielding domestic and
transatlantic routes.
Air Canada Rouge operates the following aircraft:
22 Airbus A319-100s,
10 Airbus A321-200s,
And 25 Boeing 767-300ERs.
Rouge is in the process of adding 3 Airbus A320s to their fleet as well.
These aircraft are coming from Mexican carrier Interjet.
Over the next few months, Air Canada Rouge will also be adding more Airbus A321s from
WOW Air of Iceland.
Finally, the mainline Air Canada fleet.
For the narrowbodies, Air Canada has:
18 Embraer 190s,
16 Airbus A319-100s,
41 Airbus A320-200s,
15 Airbus A321-200s,
And 24 Boeing 737 MAX 8s.
Social media’s favourite airplane right now.
Air Canada ordered 61 of these aircraft back in 2014.
Of this order, 50 are 737 MAX 8s, and the remaining 11 are 737 MAX 9s.
Moving on to the widebodies!
The widebody fleet includes:
6 Boeing 767-300ERs,
8 Boeing 787-8 Dreamliners,
29 Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners,
10 Airbus A330-300s, with 2 more on the way,
6 Boeing 777-200LRs,
And lastly, the flagship of the fleet - 19 Boeing 777-300ERs.
All in all, Air Canada has a very wide range of capacity - From 18 seats on the Beech 1900s
to 450 on the 777-300ERs.
As for the future of the Air Canada fleet - the airline will be welcoming it’s first
Bombardier CSeries or, as much as it pains me to say, Airbus A220 later this year.
In 2016, Air Canada ordered 45 Bombardier CS300s (as they were known back then), with
options for 30 more.
The A220s will primarily replace the Embraer 190s, as well as the older Airbus A319 aircraft.
The Embraer 190s will leave the fleet for good in 2020.
On the smaller end, there are also 9 new CRJ-900s on order for Jazz Aviation.
These should be delivered in 2020.
There are also three second-hand CRJ-900s joining the fleet from SkyWest Airlines.
The first of these recently entered service.
Back in 2005, Air Canada ordered Boeing 787 Dreamliners as part of their fleet renewal,
and they recently took delivery of their 37th and final aircraft.
They’ve stated that they do not plan to exercise any of their options for further Dreamliners.
The Boeing 767s will be retired by the end of 2019, and to partially replace these aircraft,
Air Canada is in the process of receiving 4 additional A330s.
These aircraft are coming from TAP Portugal, who acquired them from Singapore Airlines
a few years prior.
The first two aircraft have already been delivered.
These aircraft, however, have a slightly different interior, featuring Singapore’s older business
class product, which Air Canada is selling as Premium Economy.
The Airbus A320 family aircraft are sticking around for now, but eventually, they will
be replaced by the 737 MAX 8 and MAX 9, once the aircraft return to service.
Like I said at the start of this video, if the deal with Transat does go through, these
plans will obviously change.
Also, given the ever-changing nature of the 737 MAX situation, it is possible that some
of these retirement dates could be adjusted.
With a modern narrowbody fleet of Airbus A220s, and 737 MAXs, combined with the widebody fleet
of A330s, 777s, and 787s, Air Canada and its subsidiaries should be well equipped for the decade ahead.
A special thank you to my friend Brandon Siska for his help with some of the Rouge photos.
I highly encourage you to check out his channel, which I’ll link in the description below.
Thank you very much for watching!
Let me know in the comments below if you’d like to see more videos like this in the future!
Be sure to leave a thumbs up if you enjoyed, subscribe if you’re new to the channel,
and as always, I’ll see you in the next one.