From the restructuring bulletin:

Fleet growth opportunities

The Company continues to actively look for win/win opportunities to expand our international flying. As we have seen over recent months, we have successfully launched or re-launched routes to Buenos Aires, Santiago, Delhi, Havana and San Jose, Costa Rica. These routes have shown positive early results and have provided Air Canada and our people with unique opportunities for growth. Over the months ahead, we are determined to continue maximizing our international route rights and growing our route network worldwide.

With this in mind, we now have an opportunity to acquire two Airbus A340-500 ultra-longhaul aircraft that were originally slated to be delivered last year, but did not occur as a result of our CCAA filing. In the current CCAA environment, however, a number of contractual considerations must be negotiated between the company and ACPA so that an attractive business case can be developed to obtain the support of the Board of Directors, the Monitor, the equity plan sponsor, the creditors, and the Court to permit the entry of these aircraft into our fleet.

The A340-500 is capable of operating markets such as Toronto-Hong Kong, Vancouver-Sydney, or Toronto-Delhi on a non-stop basis year round. The operation of these aircraft would involve the employment of approximately 65 additional pilots and 200 additional flight attendants as well as lead to the preservation/creation of other jobs throughout the corporation. Hopefully discussions to acquire these aircraft will be successful by Tuesday, February 24, 2004, as there has been much market speculation that if Air Canada does not commit to these aircraft in the coming days they will be placed with a Middle-Eastern carrier.

In the interests of transparency and to permit open and frank negotiations, the Company will look to conduct these negotiations in an open forum. Furthermore, the Company will also seek to conduct this and any future negotiations with all unions in the same fashion.

By working together, we can create new opportunities to benefit our employees and all our stakeholders. Further updates on these negotiations will be communicated as developments warrant. The Company�s request to ACPA will be available for review on achorizons.ca and Aeronet under Restructuring.


Employee Communications YULNNAC
Restructuring is on Aeronet, www.achorizons.ca, and in CIC*98/22.
Read New Horizons on www.achorizons.ca

My apologies to exAC for starting this duplicate thread. I did not notice his thread.

Please consider this one closed.

No problem 320. My topic line was a bit obtuse.

WooHooo!!!!!!!!!!
Toronto direct Johannesburg!!!!!!!

Not a chance

Any idea what is happening with the 340-600's?

[This message has been edited by why fly (edited Feb 20, 2004).]

I would think the planes will be used on the YYZ/NRT runs to train the crews and then put on the HKG/YYZ run where the cash is! The 600 series have yet to be built for AC , so they are a little ways off.

Why not train them on the HKG run, what is the difference from the NRT run, 4 hrs?

Also if AC is getting two 345's I assume both will be used on a daily HKG run.... correct?
So these planes will not be available for any other routes??
I am not sure, some of the experts can tell us, but I think the HKG run is 16 hrs YYZ-HKG. So the plane won't be back in time for the next days flight.

[This message has been edited by why fly (edited Feb 20, 2004).]

Maybe they won't run the flight daily from YYZ ?! And I don't think they could use them on 2 routes at the same time as you pointed out, it is a time impossibility .SQ trained their crew for 6 weeks on the DPS/BKK/CGK runs and they are not more than 3 hours!

The A345 was going to be first broken in on the NRT/YYZ run last summer as I recieved literature including a timetable and seatmap for the plane here in Japan. I recieved this literature in the early spring last year it said in Japanese "come try our new plane on the daily Toronto run". This was before CCAA ! I still think the 346 was to be used on high capacity routes to replace the ex CP 744's. I am sure AC will miss those planes this summer as they need the capacity to NRT and KIX for the summer! Anyway , we will find out by the 24th or so if they get the aircraft! Hope they do !

They were originally bought for YYZ-HGK, but who knows things have changed. Also looking at the Promotions on YYZ-HKG, the route sucks at the moment
I was told the 346 were cancelled. Anyone know for sure?

I do not think the A346 are cancelled. But the delivery slots may have been pushed back by a year.

I see the A345s used either on the YYZ-HKG or the YVR-SYD

I suspect AC may opt to replace the A346s with A345s so that they can use the A345s on 2 or more routes.

If pax numbers increase, then we will see the A346 in AC colours... Most likely the A346s used on YVR-NRT, YVR-KIX and/or YVR-HKG

According to the Airbus site AC has 13 A340 series aircraft ordered, 8 delivered and 9 operational. I assume the difference between the delivered and operational to be a leased a/c. The stats were last updated on Jan 31/04. At least from Airbus' view AC still has 4 on order. The spreadsheet does not differentiate on the different models within the series so it won't confirm whether the 600's are on order

The link to the spreadsheet is:
Airbus Orders & Deliveries Spreadsheet

AC ordered 8 A343s from Airbus.
They are operating these 8 A343s and also another A343 being leased from ILFC.

Airbus also has an order for 2 A345s and 3 A346s. 2 A345s are stored in CHR. One occasionally makes training flights. The 3 A346s are not built yet.

As a result I am 99% sure the A346s have not been cancelled yet. However things still can change in the coming months..

these planes will not be coming as the pilot union scuttled the deal.

I believe today was the decision day to finalize the deal. As naplessyrupeater reported, ACPA has nixed the deal.

Too bad...

I will openly admit that we don't know all the details but you would think that the ACPA would jump all over 65 high paying jobs on birds of this size.

Makes you wonder if they cut off their nose to spite their face here.