Air Canada is holding its annual presentation to investors today, providing an outlook for the year ahead as well as key targets through 2024. After a couple of terrible years, the future is looking brighter.
"With the pandemic receding and travel returning, Air Canada has put in place a strategy to return to profitability and increase long-term shareholder value," said Michael Rousseau, President and CEO.
The airline says it plans to increase its full year 2022 capacity by about 150% from 2021 levels, bringing it back to about 75% of pre-pandemic 2019 capacity. Full recovery is expected to take longer - AC expects 2024 full year capacity to reach about 95% of 2019 levels.
The carrier says it will continue to adjust capacity and take other measures as required, depending on factors including for passenger demand, public health guidelines, travel restrictions globally, inflation and other cost pressures.
For 2022, Air Canada expects adjusted cost per available seat mile (CASM) to increase 13-15% when compared to 2019. It sees the cost jump easing as time goes on, predicting that 2024 CASM will be up just 2-4% when compared to 2019.
The airline also has big plans for the reacquired Aeroplan, predicting 40% growth in its membership base by the end of 2024, when compared to February, 2019 levels.
Another key target is an annual return on invested capital (ROIC) of about 15% by year-end 2024.
The Investor Day presentations will focus on topics including an overview of commercial strategy by EVP and Chief Commercial Officer Lucie Guillemette, a customer experience presentation by Craig Landry, EVP and Chief Operations Officer, a session on Aeroplan and customer loyalty by Mark Nasr, SVP Products, Marketing and eCommerce, and a briefing on network expansion by Mark Galardo, SVP Network Planning and Revenue Management.
The event runs from 9am EST to 1pm, and the live webcast and the replay of the event can be accessed here.
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