Just a year ago, Air Canada announced that it would streamline its fleet structure. According to their simplification program, their mainline, Rouge and Express lineup would look something like this at the end of 2028.

Air Canada

  • Boeing 777s
  • Boeing 787s
  • Airbus A330s
  • Airbus A321s (ceo and XLR)
  • Airbus A220s

Air Canada Rouge

  • Boeing 737 MAX 8s

Air Canada Express

  • Embraer E175s
  • Bombardier CRJ 900s
  • Bombardier Dash 8 Q400s

They’ve done a pretty good job of sticking to the plan over the past year, phasing out aircraft not fitting into any one of those categories above with the exception of the Airbus A320-200s in the mainline fleet, along with the entire Airbus lineup over at Rouge.

According to their latest Investor Day, they are now pushing full steam ahead to transition the Air Canada Rouge arm to an all-MAX fleet. As reported by Airline Geeks, Air Canada’s CFO, John Di Bert said the Rouge transition will be completed by the end of 2026.

Currently Air Canada operates 47 Boeing 737 MAX 8s under its mainline arm, and are expected to take on five more in the future to bring that number to 52 by the end of 2026. It’s not clear what the final cabin configuration will look like, but given that they will operate under Air Canada’s low-cost arm, they plan to remove some business class seats, and reduce seat pitch slightly to offer an overall denser cabin. The first MAX is set to be overhauled within the next six weeks, and updates should be done pretty swiftly. No mention was made about the livery, but maybe we might see something like this?

boeing 737 max 8 air canada rouge fs to
Credit: LiveryLab/FlightSim.to

Air Canada Rouge current has 18 Airbus A319s, five A320s and 14 A321s. Based on Air Canada’s realignment program, The 321s will most likely go to the mainline fleet while the A320s and 19s may be phased out entirely.

Air Canada Rouge mainly operates leisure flights to the Caribbean, Central America, Mexico and parts of the United States. The Rouge routes will be transitioned to MAX 8s, while others in the Caribbean that currently see MAX 8 service will most likely see a switch to the Air Canada Rouge branding.

When the transition does happen, customers who were accustomed to mainline service will be in for a bit of a tighter squeeze. We’d also hope that ticket prices are reduced to match the low-cost level of service.  

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