Air Canada

development history

Air Canada, formerly known as Trans Canada Air Lines, was founded on April 10, 1937. It made its maiden flight from Vancouver to Seattle on September 1 of the same year, carrying two passengers and mail. Afterwards, Air Canada developed into the national airline of Canada. On January 1, 1965, it was officially renamed Air Canada. In the late 1970s, Air Canada became a state-owned enterprise (Crown corporation).

In 1989, Air Canada completed privatization. Due to Air Canada's focus on domestic, European, and American routes, it did not have an official Chinese name until 1994 when Air Canada opened the Vancouver Hong Kong route and registered a Chinese name. At that time, Air Canada had already been registered as "Maple Leaf Airlines" by its competitor Canadian Airlines, which had opened a Hong Kong to Vancouver route in the 1950s.

In 1997, Maple Leaf Airlines, United Airlines, Lufthansa, SAS, and Thai Airways International formed the "Star Alliance" airline alliance with five other airlines.

In January 2000, Maple Leaf Airlines acquired bankrupt Canadian Airlines and announced a merger, also merging its Chinese name, changing Air Canada's Chinese name to "Air Canada". On April 1, 2003, Air Canada applied for bankruptcy protection, which was revoked on September 30, 2004. After restructuring, ACE Aviation Holdings became the parent company of Air Canada.

Air Canada announced a new aircraft livery and personnel uniforms on October 19, 2004. The aircraft has been painted in a brand new blue and blue livery, with new fonts added, and the original dark green tail livery has been changed to a blue and blue color with a red dot accented maple leaf logo.

Due to high fuel prices, Air Canada attempted to reduce aircraft weight in 2005 to save fuel costs. They removed the body coating of a Boeing 767-200 aircraft and polished it to expose its metal body. Afterwards, this plan was put on hold because the cost of polishing the body was more expensive than fuel, and the all metal silver body coating was considered not aesthetically pleasing.

In 2005, Air Canada signed an agreement with Boeing to purchase the Boeing 777 and Boeing 787-8. The first Boeing 777 was delivered in March 2007, and the Boeing 787 is expected to be delivered in 2010. Air Canada plans to replace the existing Airbus A340 with a Boeing 777, while the Boeing 787 will replace the Boeing 767 and Airbus A330. In 2007, Air Canada ordered an additional 60 Boeing 787 aircraft, making it the largest Boeing 787 purchaser in North America and the second largest in the world (after Qantas). In terms of short-range and regional aircraft, Air Canada has gradually received orders for Embraer's ERJ-170 and ERJ-190 aircraft for flights within Canada and to and from the United States. The ERJ-190 aircraft will replace some Airbus A319 and Airbus A320 models.

In 2006, Air Canada carried out a comprehensive update and improvement of its entire fleet, including equipping more international flights with luxury business class recliner seats, becoming the only North American airline to offer recliner seats, and equipping new seats with built-in personal digital entertainment systems. In 2007, Global Traveler named Air Canada the "Best Airline in North America" and Business Traveler named Air Canada Business Class the "Best Business Class to Fly to Canada".

In 2022, Air Canada signed a conditional purchase agreement for 30 ES-30 hybrid electric regional aircraft.

In April 2024, after a six-month hiatus, Air Canada announced the resumption of flights to Tel Aviv.

On July 2, 2024, Air Canada announced an agreement with Bank of China Aviation Leasing to order 8 Boeing 737-8 aircraft.

Starting from December 7, 2024, Air Canada plans to increase the number of round-trip flights from Vancouver to Shanghai from 4 per week to 7 per week. Starting from January 15, 2025, it will resume operating 7 round-trip flights from Vancouver to Beijing per week.

On October 30, 2024, it was learned from the regular press conference of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that the increase of direct flights between China and Canada will be launched. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs hopes that Canada will continue to create favorable conditions for normal personnel exchanges between the two countries. Starting from November 10th, the direct flight between Vancouver and Shanghai operated by Air Canada will have seven round-trip flights per week.

Starting from January 3, 2025, Air Canada will require passengers who purchase the lowest priced or basic priced tickets on certain routes to pay for checked in baggage that originally met the standards upon boarding. On December 20th, Air Canada announced a confirmed order with Airbus for an additional 5 A220-300 aircraft.