Amid 737 Max Grounding Air Canada Substitutes Planes From Qatar Airways and Others

There is nothing more satisfying than finding cheap international flights, especially in summer when airline prices tend to be soaring high like the temperature itself. Amid the Boeing 737 Max grounding for several weeks now with no new clear timeline for when these flights will be flying again. 

The situation has caused many operators like Air Canada several operational challenges which have impacted them as they have several fleets of these Max aircraft. Air Canada has made some significant updates regarding their plans for the summer. They have decided the 737 Max out of their schedule until August 1, 2019.

Qatar Airways

They have decided to extend the lease for three Airbus A320 and three Embraer 190 aircraft which were earlier scheduled to exit from their fleet. This step provides them with some extra short term capacity. Air Canada has taken over six Airbus A321 aircraft from WOW Air which will join their Rouge fleet for a longer-term period. Air Canada started repainting these planes and equip them with Wi-Fi and reconfigure them in the Air Canada Rouge livery. 

To minimize the capacity issues they have also tied with Qatar Airways and they will operate two Air Canada routes starting from this June. Qatar Airways A330–200s will operate all Air Canada’s daily flights from Montreal to Paris and Montreal to Barcelona. This will be a wet lease which means Qatar Airways will provide the crews for operating the planes.

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Lufthansa

Air Canada tie-up with Lufthansa for their Montreal to Frankfurt route for this month of May. Daily three flights between Montreal and Germany will be operated by Lufthansa under this deal. The Boeing 767–200 aircraft are covering between Vancouver and Honolulu/Maui which are operated with the help of Omni Air International which is charter airline and will operate under the Air Canada Rouge’s flights starting from this June 2, 2019. 

In some routes like Halifax and St. John’s to London Heathrow, Toronto to Shannon, Toronto to Abbotsford, and Calgary to London, Ontario is being suspended and adjusted for this summer 2019 as they are unable to find alternatives in these routes. Air Canada is able to protect 96% of its flying through these tie-ups and deserves credit for that. Many of the airlines faced significant issues due to the grounding of 737 Max through only Air Canada handled it really well.

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