Air Canada reported strength in business cabin bookings and fares in the first quarter. Business cabin revenue jumped 12.4 percent year over year, business cabin traffic rose 8 percent and business cabin yield increased 4.1 percent.
Total passenger revenue rose 9.4 percent to 3.8 billion Canadian dollars. Traffic went up 4.2 percent as capacity increased 4.6 percent, and load factor declined 0.4 percentage points to 81.8 percent. Yield was up 5 percent.
President and CEO Calin Rovinescu said the carrier faced "several challenges" during the quarter, including the Boeing 737 Max grounding, which took 24 aircraft out of Air Canada's fleet during the last few weeks of the quarter. The carrier covered "approximately 98 percent of our flying from the date of the grounding to April 30" via new leases and lease extensions, flight consolidation and work with partner airlines, he said. Even so, the groundings, combined with "severe weather events early in the quarter from coast to coast," led to 8,000 flight cancellations during the quarter, Rovinescu said.
Air Canada reported a net income of 285 million Canadian dollars during the first quarter, compared with a loss of 229 million Canadian dollars in the first quarter of 2018. The carrier had foreign exchange gains of 263 million Canadian dollars during the quarter, compared with foreign exchange losses of 197 million Canadian dollars in the first quarter of 2018.
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