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Aviation History
1985
1985 - 0574.PDF
Morawski continues: "There is no question, we were fat. We have to work smarter, harder, leaner." The main prob lem with the airframes of new aircraft such as the 767 is learning to deal with new materials, Morawski says, otherwise they are much the same. But the most significant change is in the flightdeck equipment: this required a lot of retraining "which wasn't, and isn't, easy". The 767's "No 1 technical problem" is in software and interfaces between systems. "Each microprocessor is individually depend able. The glitches come in the interface". During 1983 Air Canada carried out $50 million-worth of engineering work for other airlines without increasing the number of employees required to service its own fleet. About 30 per cent of this contract work is on engines; one of the major engineering assets Air Canada posseses is an engine test cell which is capable of running the biggest of the big fans. The engineers' problems and unit costs must eventually be brought down by making the airline an operator of fewer types—ideally three. The short/medium- haul aircraft would be chosen from the MD-80, the 737-300, and the Airbus A320. The 767 would handle longer, heavier domestic routes and probably, eventually, the non-747 Combi freighter work. Jeanniot sees the 767 also carrying out the work currently handled by the TriStar— including trans-oceanic routes. The 747 would take on those current TriStar routes on which business expands. So the fleet at some time during the 1990s will consist of 747s, 767s, and one of the new 150-seaters. Air Canada is expanding its network step by step, and if deregulation arrives properly it does not intend to leave the Pacific as CP Air's domain, as it has been. "CP has a monopoly on the Pacific. Air Canada will not be excluded from that market forever", says Jeanniot. New transborder services which AC would like are Toronto to Denver and Atlanta and, in several years' time, to New Orleans and the Mississippi Valley. The airline dropped its services to Dusseldorf, Munich, and Geneva in the early 1970s when the 747 came on line, but it has now restored the routes. Most of its transatlantic crossings (60 daily in the summer, 40 in winter) are by TriStar. Last month Air Canada started its same-plane thrice-weekly Toronto-London-Bombay- Singapore service. Jeanniot said of it: "We're walking into the Asian market with our eyes open. Our quality is competitive. Yes, the market is heavily discounted, but there is a good mix also of business and first-class traffic". He does not intend to go further: "We are not interested in going around the world for prestige reasons; the traffic is not there". Reports from the first few weeks of the schedule are satisfactory for such an early stage, with load factors over 50 per cent. On the domestic front there are no plans for change yet, but "we're looking at modifications to the network", says Jeanniot. He explained that because "we don't see the home market as being a large growth area", Air Canada is becoming a "global" airline—the carrier's self- descriptive word since it has opened up the Far East. So at home Air Canada has to work on reducing costs and finding ways to improve yield. Jeanniot says that he has considered dropping first class within North America and going for what he has described as "an enhanced business class". One piece of market research which worked well was the study of what people wanted on the high-density Montreal- Toronto route, where the carrier had considered setting up a shuttle service. AC found out that the connecting passenger wanted the security of a schedule, and that the business passenger wanted the full service—newspaper, breakfast in the morning, drink in the evening, all on the house. So it mounted the Rapidair Service: this provides a departure on the hour every hour, from the gates nearest the terminal, with plenty of complimentary food, drink, and pampering. Air Canada scooped 70 per cent of the market on that leg with Rapidair. This is just the beginning. With deregu lation's arrival, albeit gradual, the market ing game is going to get hotter. D Top Air Canada will retain its first class service on international routes, but it is possible that domestically it may be replaced by an "enhanced business class". Left At the airline's Dorval Technical Centre it operates this new engine test cell in which it carries out contract work as well as work on its own equipment 32 FLIGHT International, 23 February 1985
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