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2009 Air Canada Annual Report
4
MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT
AND CEO OF AIR CANADA
For Air Canada, 2009 was a
year of challenges and accom-
plishments. Along with the rest of
the global airline industry, the
company encountered an extreme ly
diffi cult revenue environment owing
to the very deep recession encounter-
ed last year. Moreover, we faced a
set of issues unique to the company
that we have now largely addressed,
allowing us to be cautiously opti-
mistic about the year ahead.
While delivering on our 2009
adjusted EBITDAR* target, we none-
theless reported an operating loss
of $316 million for the year. This
refl ects a $1.21 billion or 12 per cent
decline in passenger revenue, of which
more than 33 per cent was attri-
butable to a drop in all-important
premium customer revenue. At the
same time, unit costs excluding fuel
rose 3.3 per cent due mainly to the
effects of a weaker Canadian dollar,
increased maintenance costs and a
capacity reduction that resulted in
fewer available seat miles over
which to allocate costs.
However, we performed well in
comparison with our peers, demon-
strating a disciplined approach to
both revenue and capacity manage-
ment. While Air Canada’s unit
revenue fell 8.4 per cent, this was
less than declines experienced by
many of our U.S. peers and we fl ew
with an 80.7 per cent load factor
versus a global industry average of
75.6 per cent in 2009. We transported
almost 31 million passengers and,
most importantly, we did so safely
and with a better overall opera tional
performance than the previous year.
* Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation,
amortization and aircraft rent