By Allison Lampert and David Ljunggren
MONTREAL/OTTAWA, March 30 (Reuters) – Air Canada CEO Michael Rousseau will retire by the end of the third quarter, the airline said on Monday, in the wake of a recent backlash for offering condolences after a fatal crash in English and not in French, one of the country’s two official languages.
Prime Minister Mark Carney last week said Rousseau showed a lack of judgment after the carrier’s top executive made a mostly English video to offer condolences for an Air Canada Express jet’s collision with a fire truck at New York’s LaGuardia Airport that killed both pilots and injured dozens.
Airline CEOs are increasingly expected to address the public following fatal accidents involving their aircraft. In January 2025, American Airlines CEO Robert Isom expressed “deep sorrow” in a video statement after one of the carrier’s regional jets collided in midair with a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, resulting in 67 fatalities.
Rousseau, who helped Air Canada recover after the turbulent COVID-19 pandemic, also faced criticism for his handling of a four-day strike by flight attendants that grounded hundreds of flights last year.
Language remains a sensitive issue in mostly French-speaking Quebec, the country’s second-most-populous province, where unhappiness over the dominance of English helped the rise of the separatist Parti Quebecois (PQ) in the 1970s.
Air Canada, while a publicly-traded company, is required to provide services in both English and French under the country’s Official Languages Act, which says the public has the right to communicate with the company in either of those languages.
Rousseau’s remarks after the LaGuardia crash marked the second instance in which his limited French skills drew controversy at Canada’s largest carrier, where he has nearly two decades of experience.
In 2021, Rousseau apologized and pledged to improve his French language skills when he garnered criticism from then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau after giving a speech almost entirely in English in Montreal, where the airline is headquartered.
The latest instance accelerated an existing succession plan to replace Rousseau, 68, and the carrier said a process is underway to identify his successor.
Quebec’s provincial legislature last week adopted a non-binding motion calling on Rousseau to quit over what lawmakers called his lack of respect for the French language. The province is scheduled to hold an election in the fall.
(Reporting by Allison Lampert in Montreal and David Ljunggren in Ottawa; Additional reporting by Shivansh Tiwary in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila and Paul Simao)
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