Air Canada is set to rebrand its entire regional fleet under a new moniker, “Air Canada express,” putting an end to its Jazz brand and opening the door to additional regional partnerships.
The move comes just days before Air Canada is set to launch its new service from Toronto Island on Sunday using a small fleet of Bombardier Q400s operated by Sky Regional Airlines Inc.
The rationale for creating the new brand is to harmonize the flying provided by both Sky Regional and Air Canada’s traditional regional partners – mainly Chorus Aviation Inc. through its subsidiary Jazz Aviation LP – a source familiar with the plan said.
The source said the aim would be to eventually fold any new regional partners under the same “express” umbrella.
The rebranding is part of a broader move at the airline to give consumers a clear expectation of the different services they will be receiving, both in terms of crew and plane size.
It differentiates the main line from the regional service and the yet-to-be named low-cost carrier that Air Canada hopes to launch within the next year as a subsidiary company.
The Toronto Island service will be the first to feature the Air Canada express logo in its marketing and on its planes.
The more than 120 planes Chorus operates on behalf of Air Canada will also be fitted with the new logo once they come in for painting as part of their regular maintenance.
Smaller regional affiliates, like Air Georgian and EVAS Air, will get the new name and look, too.
The facelift will have more planes carrying the “express” logo, about 130 in all, than competitor WestJet Airlines Ltd. has in its entire fleet.
The rebranding will effectively put an end to the Jazz brand after a decade at Air Canada.
Jazz itself was created in a similar manner in 2001 as an umbrella brand for Air Canada’s various regional subsidiaries, including Air BC, Air Nova, Air Ontario and Canadian Regional Airlines.
But the regional division was eventually spun off as a separate company, Jazz Air Income Fund, in 2004 as part of Air Canada’s restructuring under bankruptcy protection.
Jazz Air Income Fund then converted to a corporation at the end of 2010, creating a holding company, Chorus Aviation Inc., and a subsidiary airline, Jazz Aviation LP.
While Jazz Aviation still provides the bulk of Air Canada’s regional flying, both Chorus and Air Canada have increasingly been looking to diversify their business.
Chorus announced last year it would begin operating a fleet of 757s on behalf of Thomas Cook Canada Inc. this past winter, in direct competition with Air Canada Vacations.
Air Canada, in turn, chose to award its contract from Toronto Island to Sky Regional, which could operate at a lower cost than Jazz.
Air Canada intends to put additional regional service above the threshold guaranteed to Chorus to competitive bidding, the source said.
Air Canada does, however, still have a commercial agreement in place with Chorus extending to 2020.
The so-called capacity purchase agreement sees Air Canada purchase effectively all of Chorus’s regional capacity at a fixed rate before selling it back into the market, determining where the planes fly as well.
The Montreal Gazette
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