"Call me sentimental, but there is something just plain wrong with AC not having any 747's. "

And how many US carriers still fly 747s? NW and UA are the last of the holdouts, and these are on their Asian routes. AC now longer needs the capacity and costs associated with this aircraft type. Just as it replaced the L1011s and DC10s when they no longer made sense. Nostalgia is one thing, operating cost another.

As for paint and brands, they served their purpose and were very necessary market condition responses. If you guys won't accept the hard facts, what can one say? Had AC not set up TANGO, it would never have been able to demonstrate to the unions how the new contracts could reflect rationalized work rules. It could not have responded to WestJet with one-way fares and lower ticket prices up to flight date without a wholesale revamp of the mainline cost structure. And that could not be done until the unions recognized the operating cost benefits of such a change. AC had to create two operating models providing alternative scenarios both for the public and its unions.

Painting airplanes provides a cheap means of advertising, more than offset by the cost savings of launching a new brand in the public's mind with newspaper and costly TV ads.

And as SkyHawk has noted, this is the current plan, but it can and likely will change over the next 5-years given the ever-changing environment. And the fleet makeup is also a factor of how the next stage of AC's negotiations go with those who hold the leases on these aircraft and the final deals cut. The only certainty is that the 747s are going, and RJs will replace more A319/320s on low density routes to maintain frequency.