Yes AC has hit the wall with regard to a large variance between the available supply and peak demand. This is a big reason why AC went with Boeing because Boeing is willing to take 20 E90s off AC hands and allow for interim lift replacement.

I suspect the 20 E90 departures will be the required lift for the transcon that is currently being handled by the Brazilian jet.

At the defense of the AC strategy staff, the E90s were ordered during a period where there was a continued history of three national domestic airlines, in the 90s it was AC, CP and C3000 doing domestic charters to take up the demand. On the demise of CP, C3000 took up the 2nd place spot in early 2001 followed by WJA. The third spot was then filled by Jetsgo, CanJet.

On the demise of Jetsgo, the original business plan of Sunwing was to include domestic charters but this never came to reality. Current Winter Sunwing fleet number close to 28 738s in 189 seat configuration. The only Sunwing domestic service is 5x weekly YYZ-YVR.

With only 2 national airlines on the transcon, prices have risen through the roof. However Canadians are still willing to fly even at the inflated prices keeping demand at records levels for the past 5 years. With new 5 year demand curve the strategic opportunities appear to have changed in favour of a much larger domestic transcon fleet with large narrowbody capacity. The E90 is now ill-suited for the transcon mission, not because of technical issues but because of altered market landscape.