Gentlemen. Ac is not dead. The issue of seniority will be resolved. The word GROWTH is still being thrown around and at the end of the day, as always, life goes on. Here's the statement from flt ops management:
Dear Colleagues…
By now you are no doubt aware that the Tentative Agreement concerning
the introduction of the B777 and B787 aircraft has been rejected. A
majority of the pilot group has spoken and we respect and abide by your
decision.
While I know this outcome is disappointing to many of us, we have had to
notify Boeing of our intention to cancel the order. To offer background,
Boeing required a 200 million dollar deposit which becomes nonrefundable
on June 19th. Obviously, without an agreement in place, we could not
risk the deposit money and therefore the reason for the cancellation.
Moving ahead, we will continue striving to enhance our company which is
once again growing and profitable. We will, however, have to do it
differently. Today, the used aircraft market, especially for
wide-bodies is extremely tight, but hopefully, over the course of the
next year we will be able to find used A340, A330, and 767 aircraft
which will enable us to achieve the growth that was otherwise
planned for 2006 with 777 deliveries. While, clearly, we don't feel that
this is as attractive economically, especially with today's high fuel
prices, we will work our way through it. Key for us,
will be the longer term issue of replacing our 767 aircraft, but for
now, we'll just leave that for another day.
I also want to take this opportunity to thank ACPA's leadership for
their efforts to secure an agreement which would have allowed the order
to go forward. Through the ratification process, many pilots expressed
their support for Air Canada acquiring these aircraft, but also conveyed
concerns over pilot seniority issues which have been the subject of
considerable negotiations, arbitration and Canada Industrial Relations
Board (CIRB) deliberation. There are clearly seniority issues to be
resolved to the satisfaction of our entire pilot group and we will
continue to support ACPA as they strive to achieve that outcome.
It is our hope that, in time, we will find ways to bring new aircraft
into the fleet in a manner that is beneficial to both the pilots and the
company.
Rob