note
Canada's first flag carrier founded by Canadian National Railways and Crown Corp operated its first flight from Vancouver to Seattle in September 1937. Two years after its foundation, transcontinental service connecting Vancouver with Montreal and Toronto was inaugurated. Airline growth begun to pick up after the war. Surplus DC-3s were purchased followed by indigenous Canadair North Star which was licensed version of DC-4 with Rolls Royce Merlin in-line piston engines. First intercontinental flight was to London via Reykjavik with Avro Lancaster in 1943. Airline started trans Atlantic operations with the North Stars. First London, Shannon, Bermuda and Glasgow were served, but by 1954 Paris, Brussels and Dusseldorf were added as well as flights to Tampa, Nassau, Kingston and Mexico City. The same year Lockheed Constellations entered fleet followed by Vickers Viscounts for short and medium haul network. In 1960 airline introduced DC-8-40s jets equipped with Rolls Royce Conway engines and Brussels, Vienna, Zurich, Antigua, Barbados and Port of Spain were added to its network. An act of parliament in 1965 changed the name of the airline to Air Canada. CNR corp. continued its ownership of the airline until 1970s. In 1955 Air Canada was the first airline in the Americas to fly British Vickers Viscount. In 1960 a DC-8-43 flew the first jet service of the airline from Montreal to Vancouver via Toronto. First wide-body aircraft operated by Air Canada was a 747-100 in 1971. In 1988 Air Canada was privatized. Air Canada transformed itself in the 90's dramatically. First it started to renew its fleet with Airbus made planes. It took over its major competitor Canadian in domestic market and because of U.S. Canada bilateral lift of airline traffic regulation, it expanded its service to the U.S. dramatically. It also bought Canadair Regional Jets and increase frequency of its flights to the U.S. gateways in the east using smaller planes. On November 1, 2001 it launched a Air Canada Tango, which used a separate subfleet of 159-seat A320s in no frills domestic services as well as on some flights to Florida. It was intended to compete with Canada 3000. The Tango division was dissolved in 2004, with the name migrating to the lowest-priced fare class on Air Canada flights. Air Canada Jetz was launched in 2002 as a separate brand to provide charter services using VIP-configured A319s.
founded - demised (age)
March 10 1937 - present (88years)
headquarters
St. Laurent P.O. Box 1400, Montreal
web
base airports
related operators
current /stored fleet (224)
