Air Canada has made start on targets: CEO

Air Canada CEO, Calin Rovinescu, stated the carrier has made a start on what it wants to achieve and the carrier is an appealing airline to investors (Financial Post, 12-May-2010). The carrier plans to now focus on dealing with its debt maturities and increase its net liquidity levels. The carrier has 16% of trailing 12-month revenue at present and is aiming to improve this to 20%. Air Canada has also implemented a second series of initiatives beyond its CAD500 million cost and revenue improvement goal. It is targeting improvements of CAD270 million by the end of 2010 and CAD500 million by the end of 2011. Furthermore, the carrier plans to take risks on international routes, which Mr Rovinescu stated is part of its long-term vision.

Air Canada: "If I had a crystal ball on whether to go long or short on the airline industry at any point in time, I'd be doing very, very well. I will say this though, my objective is to keep my head down and do the things that have the most value, and if it doesn't work, correct it and do something else. What we showed last year was we could solve the pension problem, at least for this year; we could extend the collective agreements when most thought we'd have a meltdown; we could raise the liquidity when everyone thought there was no way to raise the liquidity; and improve our customer service offering so we win all these awards for North America ... It's a very appealing airline. Can we achieve what we want to achieve? I would say based on what we achieved last year, we've made a pretty good start, but we're far from finished … The entire international strategy is the cornerstone of Air Canada's long-term vision, and my long-term vision. So, we're going to take risks internationally on routes that we've either studied or we believe there is a potential and we will make an investment in some cases," Calin Rovinescu, CEO. Source: Financial Post, 12-May-2010.