Air Canada to Layoff 1,700 More Employees; Reduces Q1 Capacity

Air Canada has reduced its Q1 2021 system capacity by an additional 25%.

As a result, the airline will further reduce its workforce by approximately 1,700 employees, in addition to the over 200 impacted employees at the company's Express carriers.

The airline says it is working with unions on mitigation programs.

Lucie Guillemette, Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer at Air Canada, said, “Since the implementation by the Federal and Provincial Governments of increased travel restrictions and other measures, in addition to the existing quarantine requirements, we have seen an immediate impact to our close-in bookings and have made the difficult but necessary decision to further adjust our schedule and rationalize our transborder, Caribbean and domestic routes to better reflect expected demand and to reduce cash burn. We regret the impact these difficult decisions will have on our employees who have worked very hard during the pandemic looking after our customers, as well as on the affected communities.”

Air Canada will be reducing approximately 25 per cent of its planned capacity for the balance of the first quarter of 2021. With this reduction, capacity in the first quarter of 2021 will be about 20 per cent of what Air Canada operated in the first quarter of 2019.

“While this is not the news we were hoping to announce this early into the year, we are nonetheless encouraged that Health Canada has already approved two vaccines and that the Government of Canada expects the vast majority of eligible Canadians to be vaccinated by September. We look forward to seeing our business start to return to normal and to bringing back some of our more than 20,000 employees currently on furlough and layoff,”Ms. Guillemette added.

Affected customers on all routes will be contacted by Air Canada and offered options, including refunds for eligible customers and alternative routings where available.

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