AIRLINE PROFILE Air Canada is working with Bell Media on content for its IFE system
No compromise by RICK LUNDSTROM
Air Canada’s first A220-300 took to the air in January representing a pick that lets the airline spend billions of dollars in its home country, and fills a specific need while earning kudos for sustainability
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o find what Air Canada’s Vice President of Product Andrew Yiu called a fleet addition that comfortably fills the “Goldilocks Zone,” executives did not have to look far, as in not far down the road. Bombardier manufactured the A220-300 in a partnership with Airbus Canada that lasted until February of this year. It was then the company announced that it had transferred its remaining shares in aircraft to Airbus Canada. However, with a long-term commitment by the Government of Québec in the form of a 25 percent share, production and jobs will remain in Montreal. As part of the agreement, Airbus has acquired the A220 and A330 production capability from Bombardier in SaintLaurent, Québec. The production
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activities will be operated in the Saint Laurent site by Stelia Aéronautique Saint Laurent Inc., a newly created subsidiary of Stelia Aerospace, which is a 100 percent Airbus subsidiary. Airbus also makes the A220 at a second assembly line for the aircraft opened this past summer in Mobile, Alabama. From the beginning as the Bombardier C-Series, the A220 was billed as a way for airlines to maximize opportunities and compliment larger single-aisle aircraft. With its comfort levels and range at 3,500-plus nautical miles, Bombardier insisted that it was not building a regional jet that the industry had become accustomed to seeing. And the national pride of Canada flies on the wings of the new A220-300. The airline has an order of 45 aircraft that
Andrew Yiu, Vice President of Product, Air Canada
runs through June of 2022. The order represents an investment of US$3.8 billion for Air Canada. PAX Tech caught up with Yiu at the airline’s new lounge in Toronto at the start of this year, as the airline was poised to put the A220-300 in the air on its first route from Montreal to Calgary. Soon, other A220-300s will be on routes from Toronto to San Jose, California and from Montreal to Seattle. The latter two routes are scheduled for May of this year. “The A220-300 represents an aircraft of no compromise for us,” Yiu says. “It is the right aircraft with the right range,