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What I would like to see in the Air Canada Purchase of Air Transat

As you probably know, I have rarely written about Air Transat, due to a bad experience (which I got a lot of heat for). But a more relevant reason is because they do not have any loyalty programs associated with it. And the theme of our site is “maximizing rewards for Canadians”. All that may change once the full agreement passes. Until then, we can only speculate what will happen.

I was actually quite surprised to find out that Air Canada wanted to purchase Air Transat, since Air Transat is considered more of a low cost, charter airline. So what value would it bring to Air Canada, other than buying out the competition, like how Air Canada bought out Canadian Airlines back in 2000.

When the merger goes through, I will try my best to get an interview to get more insights. In the meantime, this is what I would like to see, most of which are quite obvious:

  1. Ability to earn miles on Air Transat flights. I think this is an obvious one, if Air Transat is going to be bought out, I expect us to have more options to earn miles.
  2. Cheaper flight options. I am assuming that Air Canada is buying out their fleet so that they can offer lower cost flights.
  3. More destinations. I am assuming that Air Canada is going to inherit the routes flown by Air Transat. The only roadblock that the Competitive Bureau of Canada may force them to relinquish some routes due to too much monopoly.

At the end of the day, I think Air Canada is looking to be agressive ahead of June 2020, when they fully integrate with its loyalty program, Aeroplan.

What are your thoughts about this merger? Please let us know in the comment section below.

2 Comments

  1. Hi Matt,

    My expectation is that AC will push for a lot of No Aeroplan miles fare on Air Transat. I recently flew YYZ-YUL and the difference in price with no aeroplan and with aeroplan miles was simple not worth it.
    This year I am not looking for status so I decided to buy the fare with no miles.

    Also Air Transat has one of the lowest fare YYZ – YUL (that also might come to an end) 🙁

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