MONTREAL, Aug. 6, 2013 /CNW Telbec/ - For the month of July, Air Canada reported a system load factor of 85.6 per cent, versus 85.9 per cent in July 2012, a decrease of 0.3 percentage points.  System traffic increased 1.9 per cent on a system-wide capacity increase of 2.3 per cent. Air Canada reports traffic results on a system-wide basis, including Air Canada rouge, which began operations on July 1, 2013, and regional airlines from which Air Canada purchases capacity.

"I am pleased to report a strong load factor of 85.6 per cent for the month of July," said Calin Rovinescu, President and Chief Executive Officer.  "Traffic grew 1.9 per cent system wide for the month, led by the Pacific, U.S. transborder and Atlantic markets.  On July 1st, we successfully launched our new leisure carrier, Air Canada rouge, to respond more cost effectively to holiday travel demand in a number of popular European and Caribbean leisure markets.  In addition, the first of five new Boeing 777-300ER aircraft entered mainline service concurrent with the launch of our new international Premium Economy cabin available beginning in July on our Montreal-Paris route. For the first seven months of 2013, Air Canada set new records system-wide each month for passengers boarded, and on August 1st we achieved a new single day record of 124,700 customers. I thank our employees for taking care of our customers during this peak travel season, not only transporting them safely but also by maintaining their focus on on-going operational improvement initiatives that are resulting in sustained year-over-year increases in On Time Performance."

Air Canada is Canada's largest domestic and international airline serving more than 175 destinations on five continents.  Canada's flag carrier is the 15^th largest commercial airline in the world and in 2012 served close to 35 million customers.  Air Canada provides scheduled passenger service directly to 60 Canadian cities, 53 destinations in the United States and 67 cities in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Australia, the Caribbean, Mexico and South America. Air Canada is a founding member of Star Alliance, the world's most comprehensive air transportation network serving 1,328 destinations in 195 countries.  Air Canada is the only international network carrier in North America to receive a Four-Star ranking according to independent U.K. research firm Skytrax that ranked Air Canada in a worldwide survey of more than 18 million airline passengers as Best Airline in North America in 2013 for the fourth consecutive year.  For more information, please visit: www.aircanada.com.

SOURCE: Air Canada