AC Capacity deployedRefer to the link https://flightaware.com/live/fleet/ACA?;offset=40;order=ident;sort=ASC at time about 1005 on 9th Sept 2021
1. It showed 67 flights in air (means 67 aircraft are flying).
2. About 30 of those were widebody aircraft (All but 1 or 2 on internaional routes)
3. Remaining 37 on DOM/Transborder routes
Air Canada has fleet of about 173 aircarft as per their website today. Approx 78 are widbody and 85 are narrow body.
For every aircraft in air there are aircraft on ground for flight preparation, maintenance and back up planes.
Narrowbody mostly flies shorter flights. Example for every flight between YYZ and YUL there will be another aircraft on ground for next flight prep. For long haul (Widebody) one can assume no aircraft on ground and this will be very very conservative. For 2-3 hour flights, one can assume 0.25 to 0.5 aircrafts on ground. About 5-8 aircrafts (when operating at full capacity) on ground as back up and about 10% fleet in maintenance. Hence,
Flight preparation = 0 (WB) + 20 (NB: more weight for short hauls like YYZ-YUL, YYZ-YOW, etc) = 20
Back up = 3-5 (approx. 3-5% of the operating fleet)
Maintenace = 10 (approx.10% of the operating fleet)
Total = 67 (Flying) + 20 (flight prep) + 4 (back up) + 10 (Maintenance) = 101.
Comparing apples to apples, AC is running approx. 58% (101/178) of their fleet. This does not include Sky Service, Private fleet, other fleets. Assume similar proportions for other fleets.
It seems their International operations has picked decently and this will add to short haul runs too to distribute pax onwards of the hubs. It means the above operating model is not baised towards widebody fleet (higher number of seats), infact it is conservative as WB has more seats than NB.
You can assumptions on the load factors. But at 58% of fleet in operation, one can expect 60% of seats in operations. I have not calculated the impact of departure of 767 and arrival of 737 in fleet. Total fleet capacity should be similar or higher compared to 2019 in number of seats.
I can comfortable say that AC is running at more than 50% (Conservatively speaking) of 2019 capacity as of today and will go higher in few weeks with more flights coming. From their history in last few years they run efficient operation and will have decent load factors.
Positive cash flow is not far.