"Irrelevant. Zip has their own employees (and terms of employment) - if they were going to get free passes, it should be on their own cross-country network.

"It'd be like Celestica employees getting Cineplex Odeon passes because they are all part of the Onex family. "

AC has one set of shareholders who in turn own three subsidiaries -- JAZZ, ZIP and AEROPLAN -- in addition to the mainline airline and its various divisions. ZIP is exactly the same as JAZZ in this regard.

This corporate model is no different than GENERAL MOTORS which has several divisions, as well as SATURN, which has its own bargaining units, management autonomy, etc. However, an employee of SATURN can still purchase any GM car and receive the same company discount as someone at the BUICK or CADILLAC divisions. This is exactly the same status ZIP and JAZZ employees share under the AC umbrella.

Or an employee of FAIRMONT HOTELS who just happens to be working for the DELTA HOTELS division rather than the FAIRMONT division. They get staff and family discounts across the system, not just at DELTA properties.

The ONEX example, actually, as described by Keithguy, is quite incorrect. ONEX is an investment company which may own controlling shareholdings in numerous companies. However, each of those companies trades its own shares on the public markets, has its own board of directors and management team, and thus employees in one such company have no entitlement to benefits from another. Thus your CELESTICA and ODEON CINEPLEX examples are not analogous at all to the situation at AC, nor to FAIRMONT, nor to GM.