Aircraft News Weblog

Category: Air Canada Jazz

  • Air Canada Low Cost Carrier

    Where is Air Canada going with the new low cost carrier they are launching? I don’t mean geographically but in terms of their competition. Is there a niche for a low cost airline operating out of Canada and who are they competing against for your travel dollars? How are they going to differ from the present airline? Well, when they come into service, using 50 aircraft of the present Air Canada fleet, there will be a lot more seats on the aircraft and lower pay for the employees to make the model work.

    The natural competition will be other Canadian based carriers operating to the Caribbean, US and Europe. This means Air Canada as well but this is nothing new for them. They are supplying their regional partner Sky Regional with Embraer aircraft on the corridor route between Toronto and Montreal which competes with Air Canada Jazz.

    The theory with the new low cost airline is to attract the type of passenger that wants to pay less than an Air Canada ticket for a flight to a vacation destination. They are hoping to remove passengers from Westjet, Air Transat, Canjet and other carriers that feed the holiday market.

    An announcement coming soon from Air Canada will give more details of the new airline.

  • What if I can’t swim?

    Air Canada Jazz, the regional feeder airline for Air Canada, has just announced that the Life Preservers will be removed from all flights as a weight saving move. This is, of course, another way of saving precious fuel. But what about the customer’s reaction? Well, an airline always treats their customers like non voting shareholders who pick up the tab for anything the airlines do. This is just another example of an airline doing something without due regard to how it will be received by the travelling public. The announcement was not thought out in regard to the reaction from the rule ignorant public being whipped into a frenzy by the headline hungry press!

     

    It is now common knowledge from the on going press coverage that Life Preservers are not required on the Jazz flights due to the fact they are not over water for the required distance. 

     

    This is not the only savings in weight that is being carried out throughout the industry. There are changes in cutlery, magazines and even the amount of water on board to flush the toilets. One airline has changed the size of the wine bottles to save weight.

     

    With the price of fuel, bad economy and the shrinking of people’s real wealth, the reductions in everything but the actual ticket price will continue.