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.
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