May 17, 2024 What's News The text write and uses here if the customer wants to know minute estimate. We answer soon we confirm.   title : Carrying Canada     Carrying Canada Does the road to airline industry recovery go through the freight terminal? Air Canada may think that it does, at least in part, as the troubled carrier plans a return to freighter operations even as the bankrupt airline struggles to restructure its operations and finances. Air Canada officials said the plan would include widebody freighters, most likely 747s, on Atlantic and Pacific routes, and may stretch to service within North America with smaller planes. "The cargo business has been good for us - it's been a bright spot," Air Canada Chief Executive Officer Robert Milton told Air Cargo World last month. "We are looking at starting a commercial full freighter service, hopefully within the next 12 months.'' Cargo has been one of the few things Air Canada has had to crow about in a troubled year. Milton's comments came just days after the airline averted the threat of liquidation in a bitter struggle with labor unions to cut more than US$800 million in annual costs from an operation that Air Canada says was losing $3.7 million a day. The pilots' union agreed to a 16 percent cut in wages in tough bargaining over a new pact that still has to be ratified by flight crews. Air Canada has warned of a revenue shortfall of some US$740 million and has said its publicly-traded stock will be worthless after the airline's restructuring. On the operations side, the restructuring will include the retirement of the handful of 747-400s, including three "combis," in Air Canada's fleet. The airline would replace the planes with A330s and A340s, including services to London and Frankfurt now flown with the combis. "We've worked very hard to develop those markets and we would be looking to protect them," said Air Canada's cargo vice president, Claude Morin. The Asia-Pacific trade, he said, "is an attractive, long-term ongoing business." The airline could bring in its own planes by converting its combis, but Morin said the carrier is also looking at leasing possibilities and whether the airline's pilots would waive current restrictions on outsourced flying.