Air Canada unveils plans for new LCC!

[AA 1818]

Air Canada’s new discount carrier will take off next June with a fleet of only four planes. The airline announced plans Tuesday to merge its new carrier, which it calls low-cost, with its existing tour operator Air Canada Vacations. Michael Friisdahl was named president and chief executive officer of the new leisure group, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Air Canada.

Friisdahl comes from Thomas Cook North America, where he was most recently CEO.

“The creation of a leisure group that combines our new low-cost leisure carrier with Air Canada Vacations, our successful tour operator business, is a major milestone for Air Canada,” Calin Rovinescu, Air Canada’s president and CEO, said in a news release. The new airline will launch with two Boeing 767-300ER aircraft and two Airbus A319 planes, flying to vacation spots in Europe and the Caribbean.

http://www.thestar.com/business/arti...th-four-planes

Interesting article. It goes into discussions of how and where AC will actually save on labour costs via the use of new labour sources for the LCC. Though, didn't DL and UA learn from their 'brand within a brand' (specifically Song and Ted, respectively) and discontinue them? Hell, why not just bring back Tango? Why did Tango fail to begin with? I guess this will scare some of the unions at AC, but I really do not fully understand what they hope to accomplish with this, as even within Canada, there is enough LCC competition.

[ACheck]

Tango failed because it ran in parallel to the main carrier. For instance there was a 10 am AC mainline YYZ to YWG, a 11:00 Tango YYZ to YWG and a 12 noon AC mainline YYZ-YWG. In many cases the Tango loads could be accommodated on the mainline and vice versa.

The new LCC will operate to vacation destinations that the mainline cannot make money on due to VFR traffic and competition from Transat and other charter carriers. Either the route will be mainline or it will be the new LCC.

[vikma4]

Thanks

Hey, thanks for posting this! I was waiting a long time to hear details about this emerge. Hopefully this shall go smoothly for AC.

[snydersnapshots]

Hmmm. Let's see: CAL Lite, Ted, Song... Don't they ever learn?

[canair67]

AC's latest attempt to rub out Westjet. They failed with Tango and ZIP and now another "low cost carrier"? Have fun with that. I'll never fly with them regardless of what they call themselves.

[Crunk415balla]

Hmmm. Let's see: CAL Lite, Ted, Song... Don't they ever learn?

Shuttle By United, TED, and Song were actually very successful. They were all shut down to supplement the mainline fleets after serving their purpose to throw a temporary wrench in the competition.

This is actually Air Canada's fourth LCC. Most remember ZIP and Tango, but long before them, Air Canada used some of its 727-200s to make a vacation airline to supplement tour packages much like Tango. I think Mexico and the Caribbean may have been served, but most routes were trans-border flights to the US East Coast and Florida. Lets see if this one sticks.

[porter guy]

Tango and Zip didn't fail. Air Canada was under bankruptcy protection during those carriers operation. They were created to try and save money for the carrier and were absorbed into Air Canada after they exited bankruptcy protection.

I'm not sure about this LCC. Air Canada basically dominates the skies, we need a carrier that goes above and beyond with service to undeserved communities or direct connections on routes that it wouldn't normally happen (Toronto to Brandon once/twice a week maybe?)