Air Canada is a powerhouse of North American aviation, with a diverse fleet serving an interesting range of destinations. However, the Canadian flag carrier is far more than just the sum of its mainline operations, with the airline also currently having several different subsidiary airlines to its name, as well as several others from years gone by. Let’s take a closer look at each of these operators.
Air Canada Express
Much like its legacy counterparts across the border in the US, 
Air Canada
operates regional feeder flights into its main hubs under a separate brand. While the US ‘big three’ have American Eagle, Delta Connection, and United Express, the Canadian national airline and 
Star Alliance
founding member has Air Canada Express, which operates regional flights within Canada and also to the US.
Photo: Robin Guess | Shutterstock
Interestingly, Air Canada Express isn’t an airline itself, but rather a brand under which multiple regional carriers operate feeder flights on behalf of Air Canada. The airlines in question are Jazz Aviation and PAL Airlines, with ch-aviation showing that the former of these carriers is the larger operator. Indeed, it has 114 aircraft in its fleet at present, compared to 32 for PAL. The aircraft types flown by each are:
- Jazz Aviation – Bombardier CRJ200 (all inactive), CRJ900, DHC-8-Q400, and Embraer E175
- PAL Airlines – De Havilland Canada DHC-6 ‘Twin Otter’ (on lease from Air Borealis) and DHC-8-100, -300, -Q300, and -Q400.
Photo: Nestor Salgado | Shutterstock
According to the Financial Post, Air Canada launched its ‘Express’ regional feeder brand in 2011, following the retirement of its previous ‘Air Canada Jazz’ regional brand. The publication explained just before the reshuffle that “the rebranding is part of a broader move at the airline to give consumers a clear expectation of the different services they will be receiving, both in terms of crew and plane size.”
Air Canada Cargo
While Air Canada’s bread and butter is the transportation of paying passengers, the airfreight business is also a lucrative enough pie for the carrier to want to have a finger in. For this reason, it has a subsidiary division known as Air Canada Cargo, which operates dedicated freighter aircraft in the form of, per ch-aviation’s data, six 
Boeing
767-300ER(BDSF) jets. These are 31.1 years old on average.
Air Canada, which once operated Douglas DC-8 freighters, had previously considered the idea of expanding its cargo fleet with the addition of aircraft from Boeing’s 777 family of widebody twinjets. However, in November 2023, the airline decided to swap its order for two 777 freighters for a pair of 787-10 ‘Dreamliners,’ as these provide better yields by carrying belly cargo while also flying paying passengers.
Air Canada Rouge
In recent decades, the rise of low-cost carriers has left full-service legacy carriers like Air Canada in something of a difficult position. Indeed, the advent of such airlines has seen passenger priorities shift, with many customers now preferring to pay less for a more limited onboard experience rather than splashing out for the comparative luxury of a legacy carrier. This is especially prevalent on leisure routes.
Photo: Minh K Tran | Shutterstock
With these industry trends in mind, Air Canada established a low-cost leisure subsidiary known as Air Canada Rouge back in 2012, with flights on holiday corridors beginning the following summer. Rouge aircraft differ from Air Canada’s mainline planes through the use of higher-density, premium-light seating configurations. The airline used to fly Boeing 767s, but now only uses narrowbodies from Airbus
.
Air Canada Jetz
While Air Canada caters to the low-cost market through its Rouge subsidiary, it also accommodates traffic from the other end of the luxury scale with a division known as Air Canada Jetz. This is one of the Canadian flag carrier’s oldest subsidiary airlines, having come into existence back in October 2001. The carrier operates four Airbus A320s in a VIP configuration consisting solely of business class seats.
Photo: Air Canada
According to current fleet data made available by aeroLOPA, this layout has space for 70 passengers in recliners laid out four abreast in a 2-2 setup. A particularly notable feature of this configuration is that it features full tables on both sides of the aisle between rows 13 and 14, meaning that the former has its seats reversed to face the latter. Among Air Canada Jetz’s notable users are NHL ice hockey teams.
Historical low-cost subsidiaries
Although the Canadian flag carrier has had a presence in the low-cost leisure sector for just over a decade in the form of Air Canada Rouge, this isn’t its first dabble in the market. Indeed, the early 2000s saw Air Canada launch two other budget subsidiaries as it looked for a slice of the low-cost pie. FlightGlobal notes that the first of these, Air Canada Tango, aimed to gain traffic from Canada 3000 Airlines.
Using 13 Airbus A320s in an all-economy configuration, Air Canada Tango offered fares that were up to 80% cheaper than its parent company’s mainline economy class tickets. Initially operating domestically, the airline later spread its wings to serve leisure destinations in the US federal state of Florida. However, the airline ceased operations in 2004, with the aircraft re-absorbed into Air Canada’s fleet.
A year after launching Tango, the Canadian flag carrier also revealed a brightly-liveried low-cost subsidiary airline known as Zip. As covered by Simple Flying last year in a retrospective piece you can read here, Zip used Boeing 737-200 aircraft and specifically looked to gain market share from WestJet on western Canadian routes. However, it disbanded in 2004 when Air Canada itself expanded in this market.