Air Canada (AC) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning. [Foreign Language]. my name is Valerie Durand, Head of Investor Relations for Air Canada. [Foreign Language] Thank you for joining us to our Investor Day 2022. It's a pleasure to have you here. [Foreign Language] And it's a pleasure to see you in person. For those of you who are in the room, you are real people to me now because many of you I've spoken to only on a computer. So before we get started, as you know, safety first for Air Canada. And as a flight attendant, please -- ex-flight attendant, please allow me to go back to my old role and demonstrate to you where the exits are at the back of the room. My colleagues will flag them to you. So in the case of an emergency, please locate the exit that is nearest to you, over here, over here. Leave everything behind. Thank you. [Foreign Language]

In case of emergency, please notice the emergency exits that are the closest to you at the back and on the sides. And leave everything behind you in case of emergency, please.

And before we get started, I must remind you that some of the information that will be provided to you today contains forward-looking information. [Foreign Language] And for those of you who are online, thank you for joining us this morning. If you have any questions, we invite you to please forward those. Send those in to our investors email you see on the screen. [Foreign Language] And it will be a pleasure for us to respond to your questions as soon as practicable [Foreign Language] So without further ado, it is my pleasure to introduce our President and CEO, Mr. Mike Rousseau, [Foreign Language]

Great. Well, good morning, and thank you, everyone, for taking time to join us for the 2022 Air Canada Investor Day. Well, I offer a warm welcome to all of you participating, both online and those in the room with us today. I'm particularly gratified so many of you chose or were able to attend in person. After 2 years, it's great to be together with you again. It's refreshing and energizing to see each other face-to-face in the same room and to have a genuine human interaction. The fact that so many of you are attending in person is also a very positive indicator that things are returning to normal and people are traveling for business. And I trust all of you have marked that as the first positive indicator of the day. If not, don't worry. There will be many more such signals that we, perhaps subtly, will be sending while we highlight our recovery. Although the world is returning to normal, it does not mean it will be business as usual for Air Canada. We've used the time and the opportunity afforded us during the pandemic to reevaluate our company and plan our strategy. And we've carefully considered the way forward in a post-COVID world. It will be a world where slimmed-down competition will be more intense. Airlines who survived will be leaner and hungrier. It will be a world where customers will be more discerning. They will put a greater premium on value, service and convenience. And it will be a world where investors will have more options for their capital. This will create greater expectations, both financially and in other ways, notably with respect to ESG. In response, we've undertaken or designed programs to increase our competitiveness and to ensure that we emerge best-in-class for the pandemic. This morning, members of the senior executive team will detail these initiatives, how we are going to implement them and the ways we expect them to drive shareholder value. But to begin, I'd like to discuss our overarching approach and how our corporate priorities will converge to carry us forward and upward. Those of you who have followed us for a while know that over the past decade, Air Canada has fundamentally transformed its business. It has been financially reengineered. We've vastly grown and diversified our customer and revenue base through international network expansion. Further, we developed a very strong employee culture with high levels of engagement. And finally, we've earned a global reputation for customer service. It has made us the only 4-star network carrier in North America. In fact, prior to the pandemic, we won the Best Airline in North America for an unprecedented 8 of 10 years at the Skytrax World Airline Awards. These achievements will serve as a foundation for which we will further elevate our business through an initiative we call Rise Higher. Rise Higher is both a goal and a road map. In developing it, we took our 4 corporate priorities have guided our success over the past 10 years and evolved them further. We will infuse Rise Higher to everything we do. This means that over time, all of us at Air Canada will incorporate its four elements in our processes, measurements and standards. Rise Higher will have real-world applications and outcomes. Rise Higher is based on four pillars. The first of these is fund our future. We will rise higher by building a more profitable, cost-effective and sustainable business. As you saw this morning, we shared new guidance that sets our immediate objectives in this area. And Amos will speak to these in more depth later today. Yet, while remaining diligent on costs, we also make the right strategic investments and take smart risks when opportunities present themselves. Air Canada Cargo is a good example of this. The pandemic created an opening in the world of air cargo industry that we seized upon. Our cargo revenue rose to nearly $1.5 billion last [Technical Difficulty] and more. Next is reach new frontiers. To do this, we will leverage our competitive strengths to grow our business by expanding our international reach and developing new markets. We will rise higher by extending and deepening our network to drive new revenue. This is perhaps the most visible, immediate and visible aspect of Rise Higher as we rebuild our network following the pandemic. As you've seen, we expect to return to 90% of our prepandemic North American capacity this summer. We are relaunching 34 routes to Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. And more recently, we announced a restart of select Pacific routes to Australia and New Zealand. Perhaps more than anything, the restoration of our network is a positive proof that we are now in full recovery mode. The third element of Rise Higher is elevating our customers. We will do this by supporting our people so they can provide a superior customer service. The innovative use of technology, loyalty and products will be key. This is why we have made significant investments in all of these areas such as our transformed Aeroplan program. Through the day, we will return often to customer service. The pandemic has been a major reset for the industry and our customers. Customer service will be vital to restoring relationships with customers who may not have flown literally in years. We also see it as a tool to enable us to attract new customers whose loyalty to our competitors may have been ruptured by COVID. The fourth pillar relates to corporate culture. We call this lift each other up. Here again, we are building from solid foundation. Our employees were named the best airline employees in both Canada and North America at the most recent Skytrax awards. And we've won many such other awards and combinations for our HR management. Lifting each other up requires that we foster a collaborative, diverse and inclusive culture among employees at Air Canada. It is, in many ways, the most important of the four elements because succeeding in the others requires deep employee engagement. Our culture sustained us through the pandemic, and it will propel us out of it. And it also extends beyond our company, which is why we view ESG as a critical aspect. We know we need to make a positive impact on society and lift everyone. In particular, it has become clear that climate change is humanity's most urgent long-term issue, and airlines are expected to do their part to help address it. This includes expectations from our employees, our customers, advocates, investors and governments who are moving to enshrine ESG in various plans, processes, laws and regulations. Early on, at its own choosing, Air Canada was a leader in this area, and we will continue to be. We do this because it is the right thing to do. As the name of our annual corporate sustainability report says, we view ourselves as citizens of the world. I was determined that we not relent on sustainability due to COVID. Throughout the pandemic, we maintained and even accelerated Air Canada's environmental and other ESG activities. For example, consider our fleet changes. We removed 79 older aircraft from our fleet early in the pandemic. But at the same time, we continued to introduce new, more efficient narrow-bodies such as the 737 MAX and the Airbus 220 (sic) [ Airbus A220 ]. And last week, we announced the acquisition of 26 Airbus 321XLRs (sic) [ Airbus A321XLRs ] aircraft, which will yield significant fuel efficiency improvements. With these considerations in mind, we announced last year again in the midst of the pandemic an ambitious long-term climate action plan to reduce GHGs that contribute to global warming. We set a goal of net zero emissions by 2050. To increase our accountability and transparency, we've adopted equally ambitious interim goals that we're working towards. Our efforts have received important third-party endorsements. For example, The Roberta Bondar Foundation in January gave Air Canada its inaugural award for innovation and creativity for its long-term commitment to environmental protection. To reach our goals, we are leveraging the expertise we've acquired such as with alternative fuels. Since our first demonstration of bioflight in 2012, we've been involved with research on alternative fuels, and we continue this work with others like the Aviation Climate Taskforce founded by 10 global airlines and the Boston Consulting Group. Such fuels will be an environmental game changer for our industry. As part of our net zero emissions strategy, we committed to an investment of $50 million in sustainable aviation fuels, research and in carbon reduction and removal. We have committed to procuring a minimum of 1% SAF by 2025 and continue to work towards the electrification of all of our ground equipment. And you will hear more about our climate plan and initiatives later today. We've also been very active in ensuring we meet or exceed expectations and requirements related to other aspects of ESG, which also drive employee and customer engagement and serve to lift all stakeholders. Our company continues to strengthen its governance. This includes heightened transparency and a rigorous adherence to high standards. The Board and management believe that a strong, effective, independent Board plays a crucial role in advancing the interests of stakeholders and maximizing the value of the company. Integral to this is diversity at the Board level, within management and among all our employees. The Board met its target of having women represent at least 30% of the directors of Air Canada by -- in 2020. In management, as of December 31, 2021, 36% of our 255 senior leaders were women. And we plan to do more. To further promote diversity, we signed the BlackNorth pledge, and we've devoted considerable resources to recruit and support indigenous and LGBTQ employees as well as those from other communities, cultures and languages. Evidence of our success are the numerous awards we've won such as being recognized as one of Canada's best diversity employer for 6 consecutive years. Apart from meeting societal expectations, our commitment to a strong governance and diversity is another way we are driving shareholder value. There are demonstrated and direct linkages between diversity and financial outcomes, not least because diversity programs open new pools of talent, enabling companies to attract the best and brightest. Diversity of thought also promotes better decision-making. It enables us to be more open minded and empathetic with -- while facing new situations. It allows us to use a broader range of perspectives and experiences to evaluate current practices and to consider new ideas, whether it's in the spirit of continuous improvement or to deepen relationships with our diverse customer base, who see themselves reflected in our people. Finally, as part of the social element of ESG, Air Canada participates very actively in the communities we serve. This is simply not to promote our brand, it is something our employees wish to be part of and what our customers like to see. One of the primary means for doing this is the Air Canada Foundation, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. Last year, we supported 162 Canadian charities focused on children with cash, in-kind support, including its hospital transportation program, and by donating close to $580,000 in cash and nearly 11 million Aeroplan points. The Air Canada Foundation also works to make children's wishes come true. Over time, we've done this consistently with our partners like Dreams Take Flight and the Starlight foundation. Some of you have subscribed to the special activities we've made available as part of Investor Day to provide a memorable experience. I'm pleased to let you know that we also will be making some wishes has come true, as a few children nominated by our charity partners will have the opportunity to enjoy these as well. Sports is another way we participate and celebrate communities. Air Canada has been a partner with the Canadian Olympic Committee since 1988. We identify with Olympic values such as striving for excellence on a global level and reaching new heights. We also celebrate the value of bringing people together from around the world. For this reason, I'm very pleased to tell you today we have a special guest at lunch, Mikaël Kingsbury, one of Canada's greatest Olympians. Mikaël has won 3 medals, a gold and 2 silvers in moguls skiing the last 3 Winter Olympics. I know he'll have a very inspiring message for all of us. We have a great deal of information for you today. As well, we want to make sure to leave you time to ask all your questions. So I'll stop here now, but I look forward to speaking to each of you during the day. And before we begin this morning's presentation and as Lucie makes her way up the stage, I ask that you please turn your attention to the screen for a moment. Along with the Olympics, Air Canada's other high-profile sports sponsorship is with the NHL. As part of this very Canadian sponsorship, our Air Canada Jetz charter probably carries all Canadian NHL teams. I will now welcome and I hope you enjoy the short pregame pep talk from Sheldon Keefe, Coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs. Thank you. [Presentation]

Hello, everybody. It's a true pleasure for me to be here with all of you today in person following a long period where we were tested in ways that we would have never thought imaginable. But today, we can confidently state that our recovery is fully underway, and we cannot be more excited to be sharing our vision of the future as we aim to rise higher than ever before. But before we do dive in, I'd like to call out our employees for their resilience and unwavering commitment. During the darkest days of the pandemic, we focused on mitigating the devastating effects on our business to preserve our resources and, of course, on closing gaps in anticipation of a bright return to business. Air Canada's commercial vision post pandemic is to defend and retain the leadership position we have achieved here in Canada and to restore the global champion status that has made us a successful international player in the prior decade, with, of course, the customer at the center of everything we do. We will achieve this by focusing on the following key pillars. Through our history, Air Canada has built a market leadership position in domestic Canada. Many of our customers are Canadians traveling within the country. And as such, we will continue to defend our position as the top choice for travel within Canada. As domestic competition intensifies, our extensive network, the strength of our hub and the breadth of our offering will continue to be key differentiators for us. Air Canada is a global airline seeking to capture international traffic flows on the global stage. The reach of our network, coupled with the extensive interline network we hold, makes this possible. In addition, and in light of Canada's changing and growing multicultural population, we are uniquely well positioned to capture these strong opportunities. For years, we have invested heavily in new aircraft, new seating, new lounges, in-flight entertainment and onboard WiFi, all to the delight of our customers. But now to rise higher, we are further investing in the people, processes and technology that will create an unparalleled service experience for our customers and will set us apart in a highly competitive environment. Craig will be sharing more details on this. And in a recovery that focuses heavily on leisure travel, having our own in-house vacation specialists accelerates our recovery and offers further possibilities for inroads in the growing vacation travel segment. Given the highly seasonal Canadian market, Air Canada Vacations complements and strengthens the Air Canada brand and provides incremental margin opportunities from the sale of land and other travel ancillaries. The lesson on diversification was on full display throughout the pandemic. Cargo reached new revenues and profitability heights, while our customer engagement through Aeroplan also remained robust despite the significant travel downturn. Air Canada Vacations, Aeroplan and Air Canada Cargo businesses are key elements of our recovery as well as important strategic levers for us in the future. Lastly, and arguably most importantly, sustainability. To strive to remain a global champion entails that we continue to pursue our responsibility to act as citizens of the world. This means creating shared value, both for our business and for society, for our collective sustainability. Throughout the pandemic, we maintained and even accelerated Air Canada's sustainability activities, and this purpose-driven strategy will be at the core of our decisions going forward. Arielle and Mark will be sharing some more details on this a little bit later. We begin the recovery with arguably the most solid commercial foundation in Air Canada's history. Through our investments in fleet, hubs, our global airline and loyalty partnerships, revenue management technology and our onboard product, Air Canada is poised to succeed in the post-pandemic environment. Unlike other downturns in our past, we emerge with increased strengths in our model that will allow us to compete on the global stage. We also emerge very mindful and focused on areas of improvement, fully aware of the competitive landscape. Our foundation continues to be anchored by a robust and enviable global network and partnerships that cover the world. Prior to the pandemic, we were the largest foreign carrier in the United States, the world's most lucrative aviation market. We were one of the largest global players in the North America and transatlantic markets, one of the few carriers to serve all 6 continents and the only carrier to serve 4 destination in Australasia. These are all milestones we expect to reclaim during our recovery. Throughout the pandemic, we turned our attention to destinations with high VFR content, where COVID restrictions allowed for traffic between our countries, which resulted in our investing in international markets such as Egypt, growing our presence in the promising India market and forging new commercial cooperation agreements. Through our membership in Star Alliance, our joint ventures and our participation in the Air -- A++ JV with United and Lufthansa, our recovery is accelerated, and we can preserve our leadership in important global markets. With recovery underway, we recognize that we find ourselves in a changed marketplace. Recovery in Canada lagged in comparison with other countries given COVID-19 restrictions. However, the advancements and investments we continue to make will make it more attractive for customers to partner with us while capturing profitable and meaningful opportunities that arise. With leisure and VFR travel becoming increasingly important, Rouge figures prominently in our strategy to succeed in the leisure market. We took the opportunity to refocus Rouge for now exclusively as a narrow-body operator and focus on leisure from Eastern Canada. This is a highly competitive space, and Rouge is important for Canada going forward. Focusing on the Airbus narrow-body fleet gives us additional cost advantages, simplification and reduces our overall seasonality impact. As many of Rouge's airplanes will be approaching end of life towards the midpoint of the decade, we are currently assessing the various alternatives of how best to position Rouge not only in the leisure space but possibly even in some ultra-low-cost market segments. Our assessment includes fleet, distribution, product and overall brand positioning, so we foresee strong opportunities for Rouge to take a greater role going forward. Air Canada Vacations has developed a strong working relationship with leisure, trade partners and tourism boards for years, and we strongly believe the initiatives and the investments underway will only bolster our performance moving forward. We all want a greener, healthier planet and society. It's something we owe our children and the generations who follow. Air Canada has acted and is doing its part for a better tomorrow and has set the ambitious goal of achieving net zero greenhouse emissions by the year 2050. A key part of this initiative is our LEAVE LESS Travel Program, which offers corporate customers the opportunity to offset their business travel through SAF, carbon offset or a combination of both. As many leading businesses have rigorous sustainability targets, we are working together with our corporate partners to help achieve our mutual sustainability goals. Customers, shareholders and other stakeholders are increasingly demanding sustainable business strategy. And more and more of our corporate partners are factoring sustainability in their purchasing decisions. Last fall, we were very proud to announce Deloitte Canada as the launch partner in this program. Air Canada has been at the forefront of change, and we are the first airline in Canada to offer sustainable aviation fuels to corporate customers. The LEAVE LESS Travel Program is one of the many comprehensive initiatives implemented as part of Canada's climate action plan and an additional steps towards achieving our long-term goal of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Prior to the pandemic, Air Canada was recognized for offering the leading product in North America. Over the last year, our operations and commercial teams have diligently worked together to restore services that were paused or modified as the situation required. As of this month, we fully restored our product suite, including our entire global network of Maple Leaf Lounges, including the Air Canada Signature Suite. We've also taken the opportunity to rethink and improve our offering, thoughtfully adapting to today's reality. Our customers can now enjoy at-seat mobile ordering with hot and cold à la carte options. Positive customer reaction is evident in the feedback we've received and also observed in the expanding number of leisure customers who are choosing to upsell to our premium offering. We've demonstrated our ability to innovate and adapt. And while we welcome returning to a new normal, we remain extremely proud for having been awarded APEX's Diamond Status Certification for our biosafety program, CleanCare+. Premium and budget competition is growing, and we recognize that travel patterns and preferences have changed for the long term. We have a robust road map of digital improvements, which will provide more customers choice, add efficiency to operations and expand the touchless nature of the services we can provide both at the airport and onboard the airplane. We also have a golden opportunity we very much welcome to rethink the Air Canada product experience as part of the game-changing acquisition of 26 extra long-range versions of the Airbus 321neo (sic) [ Airbus A321neo ] aircraft. These aircraft will feature brand-new cabins and design elements which set the tone for the next decade and beyond. Finally, we're focused on eliminating single-use plastics, moving to more sustainable procurement practices, reducing weight and other initiatives that further align our products spec back with the company's sustainability strategy. Since the introduction of our revenue management optimization system, we've prioritized transformational IT projects in the commercial space, notably our passenger services system replacement and the transformed Aeroplan program. As a result of these investments, we now find ourselves ready to pursue opportunities to optimize how we connect with our trade partners and get Air Canada product on the shelf all around the world. Our strategy is focused on using modern technology to empower traditional travel agencies, meta searches and online agencies with expanded access now to include our entire set of content. Flight Passes, new and existing ancillaries and custom offerings for different market segments like corporate travelers are some examples of what we will be able to unlock. We also understand that most of our customers choose travel agencies for post-purchase servicing, and our new systems will support our agencies as they better service our mutual customers. Finally, this setup will enable us to leverage expanded two-way data flows to improve both cost performance and revenue optimization capabilities. As we pursue our recovery, we look at the future with optimism. From a fleet perspective, with the acquisition of the A321XLRs in conjunction with our investments in the Airbus A220, the 737 MAX and the Boeing 787, we will have one of the most modern, fuel-efficient and nimble fleets in the industry. We can efficiently cover any geography with favorable CASM. Our hubs are maturing, and we will continue to focus on strengthening each hub by growing connectivity. In 2022, we will add new routes from each of our Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal hubs. We introduced Calgary as an effective and comprehensive mid-continent domestic hub. Our global partnership allow Air Canada to cover the globe. Through our joint venture, we gain additional sales and distribution strengths in form points of sales to support both the leisure and premium corporate segments. And lastly, our cargo fleet will ensure that Air Canada is ready to capitalize on a growing global freight market. We will also actively participate in the growing e-commerce space through Rivo. The cargo growth will not only allow us to access new markets, but it will also bring incremental business to our current passenger network, further cementing Air Canada's strength in international markets. Our transformation has not been completed yet, and we will continue to adapt and innovate to deliver more for our customer. As I mentioned earlier, both commercial and operational teams at Air Canada are determined to make it easier for our customers to do business with us, and we continue to deepen our engagement with our customers. They will travel better. In closing, we can confidently say that the overall recovery is indeed getting closer. And we continue to welcome the easing of travel restricts in Canada and around the world. This summer, Air Canada will be at nearly 80% of 2019 activity. We project to be close to full recovery during 2024. This is buoyed by a strong domestic recovery, a strong rebound in the visiting family and relative market and the overall pent-up demand for leisure travel. The recovery in business segments or business markets will lag. However, we anticipate a strong rebound in 2023. In the interim, we will continue to focus on creating new products and seizing opportunities to mitigate the associated yield impact in -- but in reality, our exposure is manageable given the size of our premium cabins and the ability for us to be able to tap into other points of sales while corporate Canada returns. We're optimistic that by 2023, 2024, Asia Pacific markets will also rebound as countries progressively open up their borders for foreign travel. I want to thank you for your time. And as you can see, we are facing our future with optimism and a drive to rise higher than ever before. I'll now welcome Mark Galardo, our Senior Vice President, Network Planning and Revenue Management, to the stage and welcome your attention to the screen for words from the Calgary Flames. Thank you. [Presentation]

[Foreign Language] I'd like to take a few moments to thank our employees for their unwavering belief in this airline. I'm proud to stand in front of you today and talk about reaching new frontiers as we're most decisively into recovery. This has been a moment we prepared but impatiently waited for. After theorizing about what a recovery would and could look like, we're glad to see that the development and a -- of our rebuild is evolving as planned. As we look forward, we will face many unknowns given the changing geopolitical landscape in the post-pandemic market. Not only will we face changing market dynamics but also additional competition in nearly all markets we serve. However, we believe that the network diversification that Air Canada holds remains a key competitive advantage that will continue to propel us forward. It has been a cornerstone of our international global champion strategy. Air Canada is an airline that is not overly dependent on any geographic sector to deliver profitability. Most recently, we've demonstrated our ability to pivot quickly out of markets that will have a longer recovery curve while, at the same time, we have redeployed our fleet into fast-growing markets like VFR and leisure. The strength and diversification of the Air Canada network and our ability to adapt will enable us to work towards profitability targets as we take on any of the upcoming challenges. Our network strategy is predicated on the development of our key hubs of Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. Each hub offers a unique opportunity in terms of geography and demography. And on the right-hand side of the chart, you'll see that Toronto and Montreal are indeed the third and fourth largest hubs on the North Atlantic, surpassing key U.S. cities such as Atlanta, New York JFK and Chicago O'Hare. And this summer, we've increased our fee to each hub, launching multiple routes with the goal of further increasing connectivity. And we're particularly excited to witness the impressive connection volume we see building at each of our hubs going into summer. Once there's a larger reopening of the Pacific market, the rebuild of our Vancouver hub will accelerate. Vancouver will continue to be our main Pacific hub. And with future 787 delivery plan, we're actively looking at the Southeast Asia market for further possible hub development. And we're also introducing Calgary as a mid-continent hub, which allows us to seamlessly connect traffic from Western Canada to Central and Eastern Canada. And we've witnessed the strong results some of our American peers have observed with their mid-continent hubs. Calgary will continue to play an important role for us throughout the recovery. The evolution of Canada's demographic profile is before us. And over the next years, we can expect approximately nearly 0.5 million immigrants to our country, which promises to change the demand characteristics going forward. With immigration levels continuing to grow over the next 4 to 5 years, there are emerging opportunities that continue to stand out which we can quickly capitalize on. India is just one example of how we're able to redeploy the fleet quickly to seize this VFR opportunity. We strongly believe in the promise of the Canada-India market and foresee numerous growth opportunities. We project additional growth opportunities in Africa as well, which is relatively underserved from Canada. We're actively reviewing various sub-Saharan market opportunities. And with the A321XLR scheduled to come into our fleet, we'll have the flexibility to further grow our network from our Eastern hubs. One example is the continued [indiscernible] which is leading to considerable future growth opportunities. The role of immigration into Canada is an important aspect of shaping Air Canada's current and future long-haul network. In the past, we've spoken to you about what's about to come for our fleet. And for the first time in nearly two decades, we're proud to say that our narrow-body fleet renewal program is almost complete. The A220, 737 MAX and newly announced A321XLR arriving in our fleet will complete our transition to a simpler, more efficient and sustainable fleet. This will provide us with further economic and operational flexibility, especially in a high oil price environment. And as excited as I was for the A220 to come into our fleet back in 2019, I'm equally and possibly more excited to see the A321XLR join our fleet in 2024. Our fleet delivers four main advantages: We have efficient cabin configurations that maximize overall total seat count; we have competitive unit costs on each of the fleet types that we operate; fewer fleet types leads to simplification and overall economic efficiency gains; and lastly, a reduced carbon footprint, which has already [indiscernible] with the introduction of the A220 and the 737 MAX, we will continue to decrease our carbon footprint going forward as we take on more A220s and A321XLRs. Our fleet has and continues to provide us with a great amount of operational and economic flexibility. Our ability to serve markets with the right mix of frequency and competitive economics is no longer in question. And we will continue to examine our fleet requirements going forward as certain older aircraft will experience end of life within the decade. Air Canada prides itself on having some of the most efficient cabin configurations in the industry. For example, consider our 777-300 fleet. We have some of the densest configurations in the industry and certainly one that is the least dependent on premium revenues on a relative basis. In some cases, our 777 configuration offers more than 100 additional seats versus our peers. The same applies for other wide-bodies such as our 787 and Airbus A330 fleets. This gives us the requisite economics to effectively compete for leisure and VFR customers. Air Canada is well positioned to emerge post pandemic with a relatively favorable cost advantage versus our peers mainly due to our efficient cabin configurations. The A321XLR will provide Air Canada with extensive versatility. With this aircraft in our fleet, we can resume international growth without the economic burden of a larger, wide-body airplane. The aircraft also has an extended range profile. And subject to Transport Canada approval, it will allow us to reach Europe and even Western Africa from both Montreal and Toronto. Another key advantage for Air Canada acquiring the A321XLR is the ability to deploy the aircraft on transcon missions in places such as Los Angeles or even San Francisco. Within Air Canada's Signature lie-flat product in the front cabin of the aircraft, we can free up wide-bodies that were used on some of these transcon routes and redeploy these wide-bodies to potentially new international missions. The A321XLR also contributes in achieving Air Canada's climate sustainability goals. This new aircraft claims an up to 23% lower fuel burn per seat versus the A330 on a typical transatlantic mission and up to 17% lower fuel per seat versus the current A321 model on a typical transcon mission. The A321XLR really represents the next evolution in Air Canada's growth profile, and we're certainly excited about the growth possibilities enabled by this airplane. Air Canada is proud to have claimed the title of the largest foreign carrier operating in the United States, and this is a title that we aim to retain for the long term. The transborder is not only important for growing the Canada-United States demand but also for the development of our international network as we plan to draw an increasing share of U.S. international transit traffic. And we will continue to cement our competitive position on the transborder by offering 94 routes in the summer of '22. This is 2.5x greater than our closest competitor. And we will disproportionately focus our growth on a subset of U.S. metro areas that are growing above the national average. Cities such as Atlanta, Austin, Seattle are among the many other U.S. markets we're investing in the form of either additional routes and/or capacity this year. And we're also considering other new routes to various U.S. metro areas with the goal of further increasing the connectivity of our key hubs. Sixth Freedom traffic that flows through our global hubs is a cornerstone of our international strategy. The U.S. market continues to be the most lucrative and desirable aviation market in the world and has demonstrated a robust post-pandemic rebound in recent months. And looking at the summer '22, we estimate there will be over 1,000 city pairs on the U.S. transatlantic connecting through our hubs. Over the prior decade, Air Canada has progressively grown Sixth Freedom traffic through the years. And this strategy particularly pays off today since Sixth Freedom demand supports the recovery and accelerates the rebuild of our international network. Emerging from the pandemic, our Sixth Freedom strategy will be even more important. Our plan to capitalize and obtain our fair share of Sixth Freedom traffic continues to be a cornerstone of building Air Canada into a global champion. Coming out of the pandemic, the components of customer demand have changed. As a result, the revenue management practice at Air Canada is also evolving to ensure that we can capitalize on the post-pandemic dynamic. Our plan relies on innovation and science applied in a customer-centric manner. Scientific and technological innovation has been part of revenue management here at Air Canada for many years. But all along, we have worked around the constraints imposed by a distribution process that is inflexible and inherited from earlier revenue management practices. We are now reaching the limits of this framework. Unlocking new revenues implies distancing ourselves from fare classes to best monetize our products and experiences. This opportunity is what we refer to as offer optimization. Its objective is to contextually and optimally bundle and price our product offers. This road map aims to position Air Canada at the forefront of the revenue management practice, and this road map will also ensure that Air Canada continues to generate strong revenues in a post-pandemic market dynamic. In closing, the foundations of our strong and diversified network, fleet, alliance partnerships and leading-edge revenue management practices will enable Air Canada to reach new frontiers. After two of the most difficult years ever in this industry, I could not be more excited to help rebuild this great company. I'd now like to pass it on to my colleague, Mark Nasr. And as he comes to the podium, let's turn our attention to the screen. Thank you. [Foreign Language] [Presentation]

Thank you very much, Mark, and good morning, everyone. Today, I'm going to speak about our loyalty strategy, and I'm going to cover three main topics. First, a recap of the strategic direction which guided the Aeroplan acquisition in 2018, the subsequent program redesign and the results we've seen since relaunching the program in late 2020. Second, I'm going to talk about our plans to grow the Aeroplan business, including more membership, new partners and program optimization. Finally, now that the pandemic recovery appears to be well underway, there are many opportunities to further leverage Aeroplan as a competitive tool. This includes driving profitable customer behaviors on Air Canada and improving the air travel experience. Evaluating the transformation. At the last Investor Day, we outlined our loyalty vision, extensive customer research and market benchmarking confirm that business and corporate travelers loved the Aeroplan program and Altitude frequent flier benefits. However, we also found that Aeroplan had limited appeal and lower relevance to most infrequent leisure travelers across Canada. With that context, we established a strategic objective to guide the redesign. We sought to earn our way into consumers' lives every day. Each word was purposely selected. So let's break it down. We chose earn, recognizing the trust had eroded in the broader loyalty landscape, so the new program would have to prove its worth. We chose consumers because we wanted to expand beyond the traditional base of Air Canada customers. Finally, we said lives every day. In order to be relevant to infrequent travelers, we needed to purpose-design features for families, we need to build a deep partnership network with other leading brands, brands who interact with our customers on a daily basis. In summary, we sought to win the hearts and minds of infrequent travelers while strengthening our edge with road warriors. And little did we know then that COVID was about to strike. Leisure, family and VFR travelers are leading the recovery out of the pandemic. And so this goal is now more relevant than we anticipated at the time. Now I'm pleased to report on the positive reaction to the redesign program since the smooth cutover in November 2020. Building trust and confidence. After our full launch and associated advertising campaign, we noticed significant improvements in tenured members' impressions of the program and increased associations between the Aeroplan brand and attributes like leader, attractive and friendly. Furthermore, nonmembers showed an increase in their future intent to join the program. Interestingly, that increase was most prevalent in the 18- to 35-year-old demographic, one that has been historically very challenging to attract and retain for travel loyalty programs. Even nonmembers now show deeper brand association with attributes like leader, cool and friendly. From a PR perspective, we saw extensive media coverage with positive sentiment. We've made over a dozen program announcements since the relaunch, and the sustained coverage included literally thousands of articles and blog post with billions of impressions in the United States and Canada. Make rewards rewarding. By removing the Aimia intermediary and changing the program economics, we fully expected members to extract more value from their redemptions. With our predictable pricing, the redesign redemption model is delivering an increase of 21% in value per point redeemed. By no longer having to pay cash for carrier and post surcharges, we address the top irritant in the program. And each award ticket comes with lower out-of-pocket cost. Recognize and differentiate. With a revamped set of elite and co-brand benefits and new ways to achieve status, we were successful in expanding appeal with frequent travelers and high spenders. During the pandemic, we were also able to drive member engagement even with travel nearly halted. We rolled over the Elite Status to protect existing Elite members, but we successfully grew the space 31% by leveraging everyday activities to enable members to achieve, maintain or elevate their status. Everyday relevance. Since the relaunch, we have focused on choice, attainability and value. In addition to the five new strategic partners, we added family sharing so even modest account balances could be combined for a free trip. We also added 10 new airlines to our flight rewards partner roster, becoming by far the world's most connected airline loyalty program. And it's not just benefiting customers. These changes are accretive to shareholders with improved efficiency and financial performance. During the last Investor Day, we established a goal to grow membership by 40% by the end of 2024. Last year, despite extensive lockdowns and minimal travel volumes, we broke our all-time record by enrolling 1.2 million new members in the program. This represents a 40% growth from our previous best performing year in history. Despite the pandemic -- during the pandemic, we developed tools to minimize enrollment friction as well as build in-store and in-app experiences. At the last Investor Day, we set a goal to grow the program to 7 million members 3 years after the relaunch. When extending for the 20 months of high pandemic impact, we're on track to achieve or beat this objective. Design and build for a digital-first program. Minimizing program friction is a prerequisite for modern programs. From the first day of the relaunch and ever since, our upgraded digital channels are outperforming our expectations. At launch, we saw a web conversion rate increase of 60%, and more capable customer channels and better tools for our employees also drove a decrease of 32% in the average handle time in our contact centers. Finally, introduce new, high-margin products. The redesign program introduced branded fares for redemptions and new payment options, among other additions. All of these products improve Aeroplan profitability while providing members with more choice and control over their redemptions. We see a healthy appetite for upsells and award bookings, where 19%-and-growing rewards are now booked in a premium branded fare. Also, more than 1/4 of bookings are now paid for either by combining cash and points or fully in points, eliminating all out-of-pocket expenses for even taxes and fees. We've also seen a strong interaction benefit from the tighter integration of Aeroplan and Air Canada, evidence of the virtuous cycle that's developing. With the introduction of enrollment embedded within the Air Canada booking and check-in flows, we're now seeing 40% of new accounts sourced through these channels. Impressively, even though total leisure traffic was down by almost half last year when compared to 2019, there were 3x more new Aeroplan members taking their first flight in Air Canada. That's an increase of approximately 600% on a relative basis. Finally, once customers enroll in Aeroplan, we're seeing incremental value to Air Canada despite the pandemic context. More specifically, fliers who enrolled in Aeroplan last year were 25% more likely to fly Air Canada again than like-for-like customers who didn't enroll in the program. And they were 64% more likely to take 2 or more additional trips. We're encouraged by these results, but we're still in the early innings of realizing Aeroplan's potential and leveraging its appeal to further Air Canada's core objectives. Now I'll talk about our plans to grow the Aeroplan business and to optimize program operations. First, adding everyday partners to drive membership activation and engagement. Based on the five partnerships launched last year and continued strong performance from our affiliate e-commerce store, roughly 1/4 of all members engaged in the everyday category. A member acquired in that everyday environment can activate instantly and start earning more regularly with the program, a critical support to our leisure traveler strategy. We're also amongst the first programs creating interaction benefits whereby credit card holders and Elite members enjoy extra privileges when engaging with these partners. Over time, this creates a virtuous cycle engendering cross-attach of multiple Aeroplan categories. Put another way, 1 plus 1 equals 3. We've seen -- so we have several initiatives underway to deepen our relationships with these marquee brands, and we're currently in discussions to establish additional partnerships with other well-loved category leaders. This will continue to drive enrollment and activation. Second, launching Canada's leading travel rewards. Like most FFPs, Aeroplan has long since offered car and hotel awards. But also like most FFPs, the value proposition is candidly inferior to air awards, the content and choices are subpar and the user experience is arm's length. Simply put, it's generally not a focus area. This makes sense in the U.S. context. For American consumers, there are nearly half a dozen hotel chains offering sufficient scale and compelling loyalty programs, satisfying the needs of infrequent leisure travelers. However, Canadian consumer -- for Canadian consumers, there are only 2 niche hotel credit card options, and only 1 hotel company offers a truly comprehensive Canadian network. That's where we come in. Working with lodging providers across the value spectrum, we see an opportunity to secure special content to pass along to our members for compelling points redemption, all while growing the brand awareness and stimulating demand for our participating hotel chains. There's also an opportunity to create deeper, linked loyalty partnerships with some of these brands, resulting in more benefits for our members, more engagement and lower redemption unit costs. Interestingly, even infrequent air travelers tend to purchase lodging and car rental services multiple times per year. As such, we see a clear opportunity ahead to expand the breadth of our awards offering and, in turn, expand Aeroplan -- the relevance of Aeroplan products to those that are traditionally car and hotel rental seekers. Finally, further optimizing air -- further optimizing rewards pricing. Dynamic pricing and full Air Canada control over inventory allocations have demonstrated their value. The redesigned program provides lower air redemption costs while improving customer retail value at the same time. However, we're in the early innings of leveraging this flexibility. And we're using those data to build new levers and fine-tune our pricing models. Our aim is to continue lowering unit costs without sacrificing customer value. Enabling Air Canada's objectives. These new strategies will drive top line growth while improving Aeroplan cost efficiency. We're targeting a 20% improvement to non-Air Canada gross billings by 2024 even after accounting for the effects of declining credit card interchange in Canada, which took effect in 2020. Additionally, we're targeting to lower our blended average rewards cost by 10% when compared with 2019. And there are several opportunities to beat these targets, including additional growth of leisure travel, faster return than anticipated of business travel, more partner engagement and maintaining our recent success with premium co-brand acquisition and engagement. Interestingly, a premium cardholder generates 75% more profit than a nonpremium card holder, mostly driven by double the average spend and higher point-earn multiples. Finally, I'm going to provide some color on how we plan to further leverage Aeroplan as a competitive tool to support Air Canada's core business. In previous quarterly calls, you've heard Amos and Lucie talk about the reservation system and loyalty transformations. During the design phases for each of those programs, we had shorter- and longer-term objectives in mind. Beyond the early positive impacts to our business, combined together, these systems provide a more flexible platform to enable new commercial opportunities. We're going to use this platform to become a more efficient marketer to leisure customers, to grow trip yield and to improve customer experience. The increased focus on leisure travelers means we're driving a higher volume of our marketing communications than we ever have before. The new Aeroplan tech stack provides the data and integration capabilities we'll need to modernize our marketing practices. More Aeroplan members means more marketing consents for Air Canada, and we're not just limited to speaking with recent travelers. Deeper data assets mean we can extract behavioral and attitudinal data previously unavailable to Air Canada. And finally, new tools and capabilities mean more automation, more versioning and better optimization of our communications and offers. Here's an example -- here's an actual example for a campaign last summer focused on domestic leisure travelers. By leveraging our data, platform and the Aeroplan currency, this offer drove a 5.1% lift in bookings and it produced a 400% ROI on the bonus points awarded. The opportunity going forward is to scale our capacity to deploy this type of targeted offer. Aeroplan incentives to consumers to fly Air Canada by awarding points for travel and encourages repeat business by offering Elite Status. However, the underlying methodologies are rooted in decades-old constructs, and they don't reflect many of the changes to our business model over the years. We believe there's a significant opportunity to modernize these constructs. Value-based accrual. Today, points are generally awarded based on the distance flown, and ancillary purchases generally aren't recognized. Our new methodology will consider factors that drive margin, and point investments will be focused on the most competitive traffic flows. Another opportunity is taking a page from successful retail programs. Their constructs award points, in most cases or, in some cases, all points through highly targeted bonus campaigns. We plan to allocate at least double the amount of points to dynamic campaigns to ensure better ROI from our points investment. Elite qualification redesign. A global pandemic while relaunching a travel loyalty program was a nightmare scenario, but necessity is the mother of invention. Over the last 2 years, we pushed our thinking around Elite qualification: how might we maintain relevance and value for formerly frequent flyers while catering to the needs of frequent spenders and engage retail members. We started with the notion of status boost on our co-brand cards. Then we introduced the notion of everyday status qualification to reach 25,000. We believe there are more opportunities to innovate and recognize our most profitable customers, flyers and nonflyers alike. Ultimately, these two transformations will incentivize behavior change that improves Air Canada profitability and increases switching costs. Finally, elevating the customer experience is a key corporate priority. We're building on top of the Aeroplan tech stack and redesigned digital channels to address some of the key friction points in the customer journey regardless of the original booking channel. Perhaps most notable are our upcoming improvements to customer communications [indiscernible]. We also recognize that increased flexibility is a core expectation coming out of the pandemic, and most customers want the option to self-service any request. Over the next 12 months, we'll introduce upgraded digital experiences coming -- covering some of our customers' most frequent queries. And we'll also provide our call center agents with correspondingly better tools so they can service customers who choose to call most notably around ticket exchanges and complex bookings like stopovers. Aeroplan is a critical part of achieving Air Canada's rise higher ambitions. We are pleased with the accomplishments to date, but we're still in the early innings of realizing Aeroplan's potential. We remain focused on the future on solid execution. Up next, my coworker Jason, will talk about cargo's growth plans. But first, let's hear from D.J. Smith of the Ottawa Senators. Thank you very much for your time this morning. [Presentation]

Thanks for the introduction, Mark. And thank you, everyone, for joining us this morning. I'm looking forward to sharing with you more today about our cargo business and some of the key actions we're taking as we prepare for our future growth. Today, we will focus on five main topics: Air Canada Cargo's evolution, our cargo network and fleet advantage, the freighter value proposition, unlocking future growth through investment and Air Canada evolving into more than just a traditional cargo airline. Since the pandemic began, few carriers have pivoted as quickly as Air Canada. Our entrepreneurial spirit and decisive move to cabin-loading aircraft and cargo-only flying was not only trailblazing, it preserved market share, delivered strong contributions while also helping improve employee productivity across many workgroups. In 2021, we doubled down on our cargo-flying activity, removing seats from additional aircraft, growing from just over 4,000 cargo flights in 2020 to over 10,000 last year. Despite having nearly 300,000 less flights than we did in 2019, Air Canada Cargo came close to actually reaching its 2019 volumes. More importantly, our revenue grew by nearly 109% from our 2019 baseline. This excess cargo was a direct result of an aligned leadership team across all branches. We work together to carefully and creatively deploy our assets to maximize productivity and grow market share across all regions. Our lean organizational structure in cargo allowed the team to make efficient and effective decisions in real time, capitalizing on the ever-changing market conditions. We successfully opened eight new markets and flew direct Fifth Freedom flights between a number of core cargo lanes. Furthermore, our long-term relationships with our vendor partners, combined with our own strategically located and self-handled cargo hubs, allowed us to maintain business continuity where others were not able to operate due to facility congestion or manpower staffing issues at the most stressed airports. I'll touch more on our self-handled cargo hubs shortly. Strong customer ties and collaboration provided support and record growth across our regions, with our top global partners growing by more than 67% year-over-year. This is a testament to our sales teams and the relationships we've fostered over the years. While we did onboard new customer partners during the pandemic, much of our growth was born organically through collaboration with existing global and regional accounts. All of this work translated into market-leading performance with Air Canada Cargo growing its business faster than ever before. It's not a secret that yields remain at or near historic highs for much of the year. However, the fact that our revenue growth outpaced industry peers highlights once again Air Canada's entrepreneurial spirit and our internal scrappiness in what was otherwise a very active marketplace. As you heard from Lucie and Mark earlier, our network remains robust, and it's prepared for a rebound. This network is a strength for cargo as well. As the passer network redeploys aircraft, our presence in transborder, Latin America and transatlantic flying in particular, they align extremely well with key cargo trade lanes that complement the geographical locations of our cargo hubs. A strength of our modern wide-body fleet lies in the fact that the aircraft are also really great cargo haulers. The network connectivity across 6 continents allows us to serve 34% of the global air trade within 2.5 -- 10.5 hours. This provides the cargo team the ability to sell a full market complement, further diversifying our exposure to regional cycles. More importantly, the wide-body fleet and global network gives us access to the largest freight forwarders, where maintaining a global network is often the price of admission. With the launch of our first -- the first of our freighters in December of 2021, we became the lone combination carrier in North America to offer a global passenger network alongside a freighter operation. I cannot downplay the significance of being the first major carrier in North America to return to a combination passenger-freighter wide-body fleet. As the first to market, we believe this not only provides us with a running start, it provides Air Canada with a new base of revenue and a moat that will help us defend market share while simultaneously unlocking new opportunities for incremental revenues. As I briefly discussed on the previous slide, the launch of our freighter program puts us in a new category of operator. We are now a true combination carrier with the added exclusivity of being the only operator based in North America to be able to sell passenger and freighter cargo services on a global scale. The addition of wide-body freighters uncouples the cargo business from the passenger flying to the extent that the cargo team can now be very precise with routes that benefit from cargo-only operations while simultaneously complementing our passenger network. Focusing freighter flying on key cargo trade lanes diversifies revenue for Air Canada as a whole. It also provides us the ability to minimize the effects of seasonality with -- for our cargo capacity in those most critical markets where aircraft gauge may be adjusted periodically to change -- to account for passenger demand. Most importantly, though, eliminating seasonality from our cargo capacity gives Air Canada the ability to attract a broader customer base, contributing to revenues for both the passenger and freighter operations year-round. Our freighter operation, while stand-alone in route structure, it will play a key role in providing feed to and from our passenger network. We expect our freighters to play a dual role of providing long-term revenue growth opportunities while simultaneously capturing higher yields and revenue generation from our passenger-only capacity. In addition to the 8 freighter aircraft previously announced and expected to be delivered over the next 12 to 18 months, we are pursuing additional capacity. Adding freighters to our fleet is a newsworthy event in our history, and we have been working diligently at enhancing our capabilities across our strategically positioned hubs. This includes investing at our major gateways in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Frankfurt, London and Chicago. In line with our growth, we have placed considerable thought around our organizational structure. Over the last 12 months, we have realigned our organization to have clear commercial and operational reporting lines, bringing in new leadership while mapping our existing talent to roles that best maximize their skills. Some of these investments are already underway. In January, we secured additional warehouse space in Frankfurt to prepare for the introduction of our freighter operations there. Earlier this month, we opened the first phase of our 30,000 square foot, temperature-controlled facility in Toronto. We believe firmly that our path to maintaining a meaningful global footprint in the cargo space requires just as much careful and thoughtful investment in our ground operations as it does in the aircraft we fly. In addition to our commitment to modernize our own infrastructure, we're undertaking numerous projects on the digitalization front, mapping our customer journey, improving user experience and enhanced portal with -- and a new CRM, along with modernizing our call centers. They're just a few of the initiatives that are actively underway. Artificial intelligent labs and the deployment of robots are utilized within our business to improve efficiencies and make our employees' jobs easier while also enhancing our decision-making. These technological aids go alongside an increased focus on business intelligence and analytics that inform and guide our employees in decisions ranging from long-term strategic moves to day of tactical activities. We believe that harnessing our data to its fullest extent will allow us to win on the margins in a highly competitive marketplace where data is king and quick actions win the business. Cargo's path to the future is built around further diversifying revenue streams by leveraging our fantastic global passenger network through complementary lines of business. This extends beyond the middle mile, where many traditional passenger cargo carriers have historically focused their efforts. The inclusion of freighters, our e-commerce program Rivo and our partnerships in the drones space establishes Air Canada Cargo as a high-growth, high-potential business, further supporting Air Canada's overarching goal of a quick recovery and securing our position as a global champion. Furthermore, an enhanced multichannel logistics profile allows us the ability to extract maximum value across the entire supply chain. At our core, our business unit will continue to maintain our strong cost discipline and customer-centric focus, investing in our people and facilities to strengthen our position as a world-class service provider. Thank you for your time today. And now let's hear from Jay Woodcroft from the Edmonton Oilers. [Presentation]

Thank you for your attention. I hope you're enjoying the presentations thus far. It is now time for our break. We will break for 20 minutes and reconvene in 20 minutes. [Foreign Language]

Well-deserved break. [Break]

Hello, everyone. It is a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about our plans to improve our operational performance and efficiency while meaningfully raising the bar in our efforts to improve the customer experience. These areas all pertain to our Rise Higher priorities, in which we strive to elevate our business in ambitious and impactful ways. Obviously, the last 3 years have had their challenges. We have persevered through a period of tremendous operational complexity, including the grounding of the 737 MAX fleet, a once-in-a-generation replacement of our reservation system and, of course, the chaotic environment brought on by COVID-19. I'm very pleased to say that not only have we successfully weathered these storms, but we've also worked hard to use these challenges as opportunities to improve our business, both internally within the company and externally with our partners. We've also revisited and redesigned countless business processes and identified significant opportunities for cost savings. Coming out of the pandemic, I'm confident that we are stronger for the learnings we've captured and that we have our eyes clearly set on our future. With that, let's take a look at some of the key aspects of our operating plan going forward. I'll start with an overview of an ambitious new program we call ECX, Elevating the Customer Experience. And I'll conclude with a focus on initiatives related to operational efficiency. Let's get started. As Mike outlined earlier in the day, one of our key corporate goals within Air Canada's post-pandemic strategic campaign, Rise Higher, is to elevate the customer experience. With this objective in mind, the ECX program was born. Air Canada is well known for having developed award-winning products and premium services over the past decade to position ourselves as the best airline in North America. To complement our existing product-driven strategy, we are now focusing significant efforts on optimizing the service aspects of our business as we strive to become a true customer-centric organization. ECX will allow us to focus on what matters the most so that Air Canada can engineer the end-to-end customer experience with one unifying goal in mind: yielding positive customer outcomes. While we are setting this up as a company-wide program at the outset in order to maximize momentum, we also envision that ECX is a transformational cultural shift that will become part of our new way of doing business for years to come. This program is company-wide in scope, whether that's in our contact centers, in our airports, onboard one of our aircraft or when contacting our customer care team, just to name a few. It also includes all employees across the entire Air Canada family, including Air Canada Rouge, Air Canada Vacations and Air Canada Express. There are 4 key pillars within ECX: strategy and road map, on-time performance, disruption handling and engaging our employees. I'll get into the details of each one of these in subsequent slides. To set the foundation for the ECX program, the strategy and road map pillar will design a 3- to 5-year plan to evolve and reposition Air Canada's overall customer experience. We're using a multidimensional approach by incorporating our commercial plan, the voice of our customer, employee feedback, technology and operational realities. The output will be a road map that will identify the key areas of focus that we will rally around as a company, when and in what sequence. Key performance metrics will be reviewed, refreshed and tracked along the way to ensure that we're achieving our objectives and that we're investing in the areas that make a difference for our customers. In addition to traditional metrics, such as the Net Promoter Score, we're also looking at measures such as trust, emotional drivers and purchase behaviors specific to the customer journey to help identify the right opportunities that will drive the biggest customer benefit. The goal is to position Air Canada as a customer-centric airline of choice in all segments, defending and growing market share and profitability. Every branch within Air Canada will have a stake in the design, implementation and success of our collective customer experience strategy. To that extent, we've set up a new team exclusively dedicated to the ECX program to ensure that we achieve the progress and the alignment that we're looking for. In the airline business, when you sell a ticket, you're also selling an expectation that the customer will leave their point of origin at a certain time and arrive at their destination at a certain time. The highest factor that correlates to customer satisfaction and customer dissatisfaction is the extent to which an airline delivers against that promise. It was therefore natural that we would feature on-time performance as a critical aspect of our ECX program. This pillar will include a focus on aspects of our schedule design, everything from published flying times to passenger connecting times to ground turn times and maintenance planning time for aircraft. We'll also conduct a full review of our ground operations to improve and operationalize our start-up performance as well as our aircraft turn processes on the ground throughout the day. Data science and AI tools will be critical to help us balance highly complex commercial, operational and financial variables. Improving our on-time performance benefits all areas of the company. It allows us to build a more efficient schedule, improve customer satisfaction and allows us to run a more efficient operation with reduced misconnections and lower delay-related costs. Disruption is a part of every airline's business and can occur throughout the customer journey, affecting customers across many experiences. It's no different at Air Canada. Changes in weather, air traffic control, airport congestion, security and custom facilities, mechanical issues, just to name a few, are the kind of unplanned and unexpected factors that can and do arise every day to create disruption. The focus of this pillar is less about trying to prevent uncontrollable disruption from occurring. It's more about how we manage it when it does happen, knowing that this is a moment of stress for the customer and our employees. Indeed, we must consider every disruption scenario as an opportunity to regain the trust and the engagement of an impacted customer. How we recover when something goes wrong can make all the difference. Key areas of focus will include aspects of communication and notifications, flight rebooking and protection, baggage retrieval and customer recovery. We'll also work to empower and support our employees to take care of our customers during disruption. We know that our ability to recover from the disruption will dictate the customer experience and ultimately how customers perceive our brand. Our people are Air Canada's greatest asset. We count on them day in and day out to deliver exceptional service to our customers with care and class. We have a solid foundation here, but the opportunity exists to build even further. This pillar is designed to ensure that we work together with all of our employees at the onset of the program to gain insight on challenges and opportunities to assess areas of focus and recommendations. We view the voice of our employees as equally important as the voice of our customers. And they will be cocreators in the journey every step of the way. In this pillar, we will support our colleagues with the information, the tools, policy and technology they need so they can excel in their day-to-day and deliver customer service excellence. Some examples of how we will -- include the creation of employee advisory panels to provide ongoing feedback on ECX across all branches, new innovative approaches to hosting employee focus groups and ensuring involvement of those who need to deliver on the customer promise every day. To date, the launch of the ECX program has been very well received across the company. For ECX to be a success, we also know that we need to inspire our employees with a renewed sense of optimism for the future and purpose in the work they do every day. Our renewed focus on the customer journey will allow us to reengineer certain aspects of our business, which means it's also an important opportunity to create operational cost efficiencies. Initiatives that are identified through ECX will also allow us to take a disciplined approach on investments we need to support our goal of elevating the customer experience. At the end of the day, the ECX program is really about culture, creating a culture that puts the customer in the center of everything we do, creating a culture of continuous improvement and creating a culture that is willing to tackle the complex cross-functional challenges that all too often get ignored. In other words, ECX is an important corporate strategy that will future-proof Air Canada's operation for years to come while generating meaningful customer and employee engagement. Beyond ECX, we also have a series of strategic plans to drive operational excellence. Let's start by taking a look at biometrics. Biometrics is a potential game changer for our operating model as it has the potential to improve the customer experience while also making it more efficient, reducing friction and low-value work out of our system. Biometrics are unique and unchangeable physical or behavioral characteristics that are used to digitally identify an individual. For Air Canada, facial recognition technology can help us deliver a seamless passenger journey at the airport by enabling contactless experiences at key moments in the customer journey such as a check-in, lounge entry, boarding, self-service baggage drops and security screening. These technological improvements are also being done in a manner that continues to ensure the privacy of our customers and the security of our data. We have already begun the procurement of hardware and expect to start rolling out pilot programs over the course of the summer. We expect to continue our rollout of biometrics into 2023. There are also many large technology systems that run the back-end function of our airline. At Air Canada, it has been some time since these systems have seen investment as we have prioritized work on next-generation programs like our new reservation system and our new loyalty program. The time has come for us to now focus a meaningful update to our core operational systems that support our systems operations control center, airports, maintenance, flight operations and in-flight service. With so many interconnected systems, the task is large. However, so too will be the benefit. As we take the opportunity to modernize these systems, we will not only generate improved flexibility and efficiencies in our technology, but we will also redesign the key business processes that surround them. The result will enable collaborative, real-time, data-driven decisions supported by a mobile and engaged operational workforce while replacing obsolete and costly technology. This program is already well underway and will feature multiple milestones in the rollout as we work through the various operational branches over the course of the next 3 years. In 2019, we replaced our core reservation system. The next step in our contact center journey of modernization is to invest in the remaining core assets of our contact center, such as the telephony platform and the introduction of new self-serve tools and voice recognition as well as agent support tools, all of which will be supported and driven by advanced AI technology. Building on the assets provided by our new reservation system, this program will provide us with a new and unified view of the customer across all individual journey moments with Air Canada, from booking to destination to ongoing service. New on-demand services will be introduced, which will allow for a more proactive and seamless customer support experience. Technologies such as voice recognition and artificial intelligence will automate a wide variety of manual tasks and introduce a range of new options for self-service. Key aspects of the program will go live in our revenue and loyalty contact centers by the end of this year, with deliveries planned into 2023. Of the many lessons learned during COVID, the need for new approaches to efficient resource planning must be near the top of the list. As the pandemic recedes, recruitment and effective resource planning remains a key corporate priority for us. During the pandemic, we were able to put flexible work sharing programs in place, particularly with our pilots, which allowed us to keep as many resources as possible on active duty so that we could recall as quickly as possible as we responded to rapidly changing government restrictions, which was driving unusually wide swings in customer demand. To maintain pilot qualifications and recency, simulator access became critical. A new arrangement with CAE has been put in place to provide backup for our existing 13 simulators to ensure that we have adequate access for our needs. We continue to keep a close eye on pilot hiring trends as we see this as a key risk factor for other airlines. For Air Canada, however, we continue to see a very robust training school system that delivers and is expected to produce enough pilots for our needs. Air Canada is also well positioned for the progression of pilots generally within the Canadian industry. We've also redoubled our efforts for recruitment and training for all job categories across the board and have accelerated hiring activities as needed to ensure we were able to operationalize commercial demand as quickly as it materializes while simultaneously knowing that we have adequate levers to keep staffing costs down as needed. As we look beyond the next 12 to 24 months, several other areas are under active evaluation. For example, we're looking at beacon and other location tracking technologies to help improve the utilization and the efficiency of a wide range of our ground assets and vehicles. We also plan to enable employees with improved mobile capabilities to help them have real-time access to information and applications to efficiently serve our customers and to manage the operation. We also believe that virtual and extended reality technologies will provide important opportunities to improve everything from our training programs to a more flexible deployment of resources across multiple geographies. And so that concludes my remarks for today. I hope that in the short time, I've been able to share with you some of the key aspects of our ambitious plan to drive strategic improvements in our operating efficiency, cost control and customer engagement. Allow me now to welcome Mel Crocker to the stage, who will explain how artificial intelligence is a key enabler to our business transformation. But first, I draw your attention to the screen with some inspiring words from Bruce Boudreau from the Vancouver Canucks. Thank you for your time. [Presentation]

Thank you very much, Craig. Good morning, everyone. I'm going to spend a few minutes today talking about how we define artificial intelligence in Air Canada, and then I'll talk about what we've already done, what we have underway and then what we have planned in the next little while. At Air Canada, we have 4 different techniques that we apply to data that we characterize as artificial intelligence: machine learning, deep learning, simulation and optimization. The first 2 categories are about predictions and supporting critical decisions. Examples include pandemic recovery rates and demand forecasting. Simulation involves what-if analysis, which allows us to understand the impact of different scenarios. Example is based on the flying network, how do different maintenance scheduling scenarios compare. And finally, optimization involves choosing an optimal path in a complex area without applying learning algorithms, which an example of this is route optimization. We started the investment in AI in 2018 with a number of key partnerships to advance our capability quickly. These included McKinsey and IVADO Labs. We also did some key hiring, some education and made improvements to data management as a foundation to build AI upon. We've engaged with IVADO in Quebec and the Vector Institute to share ideas and help us staff up. And we've had great interaction with the government-sponsored Scale AI initiative that has helped us move quickly getting to business results. We follow a lab factory model, which allows us to prove out a concept in a small lab then, if warranted, scale it larger. In 2019, we advanced on building the underlying technology, and we also dove into cargo, which is commonly referred to as vector; revenue management, referred to as crystal, to deliver new value. In 2020 and 2021, we extended to the aircraft maintenance space and specifically to target COVID. And we continue to expand our footprint with universities and consortiums where it makes sense. So what have we done? Before we start, you'll see a legend in the top right, which identifies if the initiative is primarily focused on revenue growth or cost reduction. We focused on the areas of revenue management and predicting passenger demand and also on cargo where we predict available cargo capacity on passenger flights in light of expected no shows. Regarding vaccination, you'll all be aware that Air Canada mandated employees to be vaccinated before the country standardized on a proof of vaccination format. So we used AI to review the submitted evidence from employees, to reduce the number of proofs of vaccination that needed human review. We included some benefits and dates on the slide. We've been happy with our return on investments in this space. So what are we taking live this year? Continuing to build upon the foundation, starting in revenue management and cargo and also expanding into the aircraft maintenance space. For revenue management, we are tackling fraud reduction and continued refinements of passenger no-show prediction. For cargo, we're focused on reducing cargo acceptance errors and improving efficient pallet buildup and also supporting the cargo sales team regarding service pricing. For aircraft maintenance, we are examining what-if scenarios to determine the most cost-effective maintenance schedules for a given network schedule. And what's in the hopper for delivery for next year? Revenue management focuses on improved offers and willingness-to-pay estimation. Network planning puts attention on to improving on-time performance of our flights based on assessing and optimizing different future schedule options. Maintenance continues investment in AI with optimizing maintenance tasks based on aircraft location, work priority and predicted failures. Finally, cargo looks to optimize routing of shipments to maximize future free capacity. As we look beyond next year, you'll see continued focus on revenue management, cargo, network planning and maintenance, but you also see us expand into airports to help improve turn times and reduce lost baggage. And you also see us focus on helping the systems operation control group and recovering from irregular operations. There are some other areas that are under consideration, but it's a little too early to bring them to this forum. We're very optimistic that smart management of data and our systems will allow us to apply advanced analytics or AI techniques to a variety of challenges in Air Canada, driving cost down, revenue up and improving customer experience. In summary, we've been successful in introducing AI into Air Canada. We're realizing value now from our investments, and we're very well positioned to expand upon what we've done to drive even greater outcomes in the next 2 years. Thank you very much for your interest in this. Amos will now join us onstage as we turn our attention to the screens to hear from Dave Lowry of the Winnipeg Jets. [Presentation]

Thank you, Mel, and good morning, everyone. Thank you all for joining us today, whether virtually or in person. It's been a little bit over 3 years since our last Investor Day in 2019 when we set out some ambitious financial goals for our airline. And obviously, a lot has happened since then. I'm very happy to be here today to share with you our new financial targets, which will cover the next 3 years as we emerge from the pandemic. Taking a step back for a moment, despite all the challenges of the last 2 years, we were always focused on setting ourselves up for success long term as we recover from COVID. As of today, our liquidity level is nearly $10 billion, and our weighted average cost of debt is sub-4%. We have a debt maturity profile that is very manageable with no significant balloon repayments until 2025. In the early days of the pandemic, we set upon an ambitious cost reduction and deferral plan, at one point achieving over $1.7 billion in reduction, cost deferrals and capital reductions. Although some of the cost reductions are related to deferral of aircraft deliveries and other special measures, as of now, there remains approximately $1 billion in cost reductions that permanently impact our annual fixed costs, which will evolve yet help improve our operating leverage as we grow back the airline. Also, early in the pandemic, we made the strategic decision to retire or exit a large number of older, less fuel-efficient aircraft. This was done for immediate cost savings but also to set us on the path forward for our rejuvenated fleet and to reduce our carbon footprint. And lastly, we have continued to invest strategically. We have already discussed cargo, our freighter plans and new aircraft, including the 321XLR. We launched the all-new Aeroplan and continue to build out the loyalty program partnership space. These are just some of the areas in which we have continued to invest. These investments and the key points that my colleagues have discussed all build into the foundation of our financial plan. As traffic continues to pick up and our customers return to the skies, we will start to see the interconnecting benefits of all of these investments. Later on, I will talk about how we project a return to strong EBITDA margins. And it bears repeating that our fleet, strong network, privileged geographic position continue as core competitive advantages. We see further growth and margin opportunities ahead from building out our cargo capabilities and leveraging AI and other technologies to improve both our operations and customer service. And these will further enhance our competitive advantages. Of course, these competitive advantages are all propelled by our award-winning culture. We are also making investments in training our people to support these new tools and technologies. Under Rise Higher, our financial priorities are reinvigorated with the objective to fund our future. The 3 key finance priorities around fund our future are: one, margin and cost performance. This is to capture the fleet renewal and cost benefits achieved to successfully rebuild the airline; two, investing for efficiency and growth, to be bold and to seize opportunities to grow the airline and improve our service offerings; three, maintaining a capital allocation discipline that is risk-resilient. A key component of margin and cost performance is fleet. I've talked about some of the fleet reduction actions we took during COVID, but of course, the more exciting part is talking about the new narrow-body aircraft that we have continued to take delivery of. The MAX and A220 are great aircraft, both extremely competitive from a fuel efficiency perspective and our integral components of our network. Lucie and Mark spoke eloquently of the 321XLR. This aircraft will truly be a game changer for Air Canada. It adds tremendous flexibility on transcon and transatlantic markets while reducing seasonality in our business, one of our long-held business objectives. Taking into account these fleet changes, we anticipate that our narrow-body fuel burn per ASM to improve by up to 25% as of 2024 compared to 2019. From a margin perspective, our narrow-body fleet renewal program, once complete, is expected to provide an uplift to our EBITDA of over 15% from both the improved revenue-generating capabilities of these aircraft and from lower unit costs. Cost transformation. You've likely heard us say this before. Cost transformation is part of our culture and DNA at Air Canada. In addition, we have an internal team that is specifically tasked to continually investigating, managing and implementing new cost-reduction initiatives, working collaboratively across the organization. This discipline and practice will never stop. Using our 2019 adjusted CASM as a starting point, the net of all of our fleet changes and core cost reductions would be expected to reduce our unit cost by approximately 6 percentage points by 2024. There are industry, regulatory and inflationary headwinds that all companies and airlines face that are expected to drive unit costs up by approximately 9 percentage points. Given our cost transformation expertise, in addition to the strengths of our revenue management team and technologies, we have the experience and leading-edge tools to better manage these costs. Altogether, we are projecting a 2024 adjusted CASM that is 2% to 4% higher than 2019 adjusted CASM. Our cost transformation and the strategic investments we have and will continue to make all feed into the first key finance priority: a return to 2019 EBITDA margin levels by full year 2024 and then to surpass those levels once the narrow-body fleet restructuring is complete by mid-decade. As context for this target, by full year 2024, we expect that overall capacity will be about 95% of 2019 levels. And we do forecast some structural changes to continue that impact overall business demand. These factors plus inflationary cost pressures do put some pressure on margins. However, we forecast being able to offset these headwinds with the measures and initiatives put in place. This, of course, remains subject to other factors out of our control, such as geopolitical events. Our second key finance priority is to support continued strategic investments in our business. The fund our future corporate priority recognizes that both in our core airline offerings and in other businesses like cargo and Aeroplan, plus significantly advancing our technological capabilities will enable us to rebuild as a global champion. Over the 2022 to 2024 period, we are expecting annual capital investments of approximately $1.5 billion, about a 50% lift from what we invested annually during the pandemic. These expenditures, including completing the Boeing 737 MAX and A220 orders, reconfigurations of aircraft such as the 767 freighters, completing the A330 Dream Cabin, aircraft capitalized maintenance as well as investments in cargo, business and technology. Moving past 2024 and towards the second half of the decade, we are forecasting capital expenditures of roughly $2 billion, in line with our growth plans. And this would also include replacement of some older aircraft. Our third and final finance priority is to have the most disciplined and prudent capital allocation strategy in the industry. This has served us well before and during the pandemic, and we see continued shareholder value from building towards an investment-grade balance sheet. We are targeting a return to leverage ratio of about 1 by year-end 2024. We see the ability of the business to return to strong operating cash flows, which will be prioritized to delevering the balance sheet and funding our investments. We have set a new target to maintain minimum liquidity levels of $5 billion over the forecast period. This is well above the minimum contractual requirements and includes a buffer for unplanned disruptions. For clarity, the $5 billion minimum would include any undrawn lines of credit. It is still a risky and volatile world, and we can't not talk about managing price risk in this environment. The price of jet fuel remains volatile, and fuel remains our single largest expense. We continuously monitor the cost and pricing environment and adjust as needed. In today's environment, we can expect a portion of the fuel increase to be passed along to the customer, and we continue to see that demand environment is strong enough with the willingness to pay. Our assumptions for fuel have been communicated with our press release this morning. All those investments I've talked about, the new efficient fleet, IT investments and revenue management in AI, the Aeroplan program, our fare options and ancillary service offerings, these are all elements that will enable us to better manage through fuel uncertainty. 2022 began with the challenges of Omicron, but we have seen its impact fade very quickly, and we've returned to strong advance ticket sales growth well surpassing the prior peak we saw in November. The federal government has been progressively easing travel restrictions, and the elimination of the pre-arrival COVID test as of April 1 is a significant step towards a return to normalcy for the traveling public. For the full year 2022, we provide the following guidance: capacity that is approximately 75% of 2019 ASM levels, with the important Q3 capacity period at about 80% of 2019 levels; an adjusted CASM that is between 13% and 15% higher than 2019 adjusted CASM; and full year EBITDA margin of 8% to 11%. While these guidance figures remain below 2019 levels, they represent a strong first step to recovery. Of course, the first half of the year will have been impacted by Omicron plus some cost headwinds as we ramp up capacity, but we expect the second half of the year to show meaningful improvement, which is in line with the current demand we are seeing. Looking beyond this year, everything we've talked about today culminates in the following longer-term guidance out to 2024. We are targeting an annual EBITDA margin of roughly 19% for full year 2024, a return on invested capital of about 15% by year-end 2024, a leverage ratio of approximately 1 by year-end 2024, 2024 full year capacity at 95% of 2019 and 2024 adjusted CASM that is 2% to 4% higher than 2019. And finally, cumulative free cash flow of $3.5 billion over the 2022 to 2024 target period. So to wrap things up, we are coming out of this pandemic in a good place, benefiting from all of the hard work that we have done over the last 2-plus years. We have our 3 key financial priorities that will help guide our decision-making as we move forward. As CFO, I see an organization pulling in the same direction to achieve all of these long-term objectives while continuing to put safety first and elevate our customer experience. The guidance we are providing demonstrates our confidence of a return to sustained profitability. I will now invite Arielle Meloul and Marc Barbeau to the stage to discuss our ESG value proposition and also welcome your attention to the screens. Thank you. [Foreign Language] [Presentation]

Good morning, everyone, and thank you, Amos. Yes. Thank you, everyone. Welcome here today in person or by webcast. It's a real pleasure for us to be here. We realize we're standing between you and lunch, but we are very excited to talk to you about what ESG means at Air Canada. So let's get going. Marc, you are the newest member of our Executive Committee, having joined us in July 2020. Some could say that was a really brave move, joining an airline in 2020. Some could say that was a little crazy. But we're not here to psychoanalyze you this morning. So...

Thank you.

You come to us with 3 decades of experience in one of Canada's top law firms, culminating in your role there as chair of the firm. So you have a little bit of an outside/inside view of Air Canada over the last couple of years. So maybe share with us a little bit about what you've observed about what ESG means to us.

[Foreign Language] Hello, everyone. I'm really pleased to be here with you. Well, what does ESG mean at Air Canada? Well, it covers a broad range of issues -- I'll get to me in a moment, but it covers a broad range of issues. And you can see that from our corporate sustainability report. At the beginning, there's a materiality matrix that sets out no fewer than 24 social, environmental, economic issues that are important to you, our investors, and to all our stakeholders. And they cover a broad range of issues, as I say, and they also cover a broad range of time horizons. Some are long term, and some are very much short term, as we all saw during the pandemic. So we could try to unpack a number of them. We will look at a couple of them and speak to the what and the how, but what we would actually like to do a bit this morning is also speak to the why, because it strikes us that the why is the foundation as to why we do things the way we do. And it gives you greater insight into how we face the challenges of today and also, how we face the challenges of tomorrow. So as to my decision. Well, a huge part of my decision in joining last year was how Air Canada and its people, when faced with the devastating effects of the pandemic, actually turned and at the same time, dedicated themselves to serving Canadians and communities. I really didn't know -- I really don't look -- need to look any further than that. I don't need to look any further than that to understand and appreciate the commitment of Air Canada and its people to its ESG values. And frankly, Air Canada had me at, "Hello, bonjour." And frankly, that's also, I think, true of the thousands of people who joined Air Canada in the past several months. So in this segment, speaking to the why, the foundation, we won't have the benefit of PowerPoint presentations or figures, at least not too many, no graphs, but we'll give you examples, mostly about key themes. And the first key theme that we want to touch on is that thinking about ESG -- thinking about ESG values is not new with Air Canada. You've heard in the presentations before, references being made to the core value of safety first and always. That actually informs a lot of what we do at Air Canada primarily about flying, of course, but also, all kinds of things that surround our operations and our activities. It informs our decisions. A couple of examples with respect to climate, we introduced offset programs back in 2007. 10 years ago, Mike mentioned that we had our first biofuel flight. So this is not new to us at Air Canada, and we continue to want -- to be leaders in this space. And so even if we are leaders, many of the issues that we're facing today in our world require not only leadership from a company like Air Canada, but they also need partnerships and industry solutions. And so the second point is that facing these challenges is not new -- neither new for Air Canada, nor is it new frankly, for the airline industry. And that's important, because of the partnerships and the solutions we need to find as an industry. So I'm going to take you back. It is our 85th anniversary, so I'm going to allow myself to go back to the 1940s. We were a young airline then, but in the 1940s, there was something called the Chicago convention that was signed. And the Chicago Convention outlined the framework for the International Civil Aviation. And in the preamble of that convention, there was reference to civil aviation, promoting understanding among people and nations. And isn't that -- doesn't that continue to be relevant and incredibly important and frankly, a core ESG value. The other thing about the Chicago convention it has a bunch of annexes. And one of those annex is Annex 16. And Annex 16, believe it or not, in the 1940s, was an annex about environment. I mean granted, it was about the noise made by propellers, so we've come a long way since then. But this is just to say that the strength of this priority around the environment that's embedded in this industry. And that same annex, Annex 16 has been amended since multiple times including, most recently, to include CORSIA, which is the carbon offsetting scheme which the industry adopted in 2016. So finally, how do we frame ESG at Air Canada? How do we approach it? We have a multipronged approach. The first one is about ESG governance and business. And that's, of course, led by Mike and the Board of Directors being fully committed and engaged as well as the entire executive team, and that streams down into working groups and committees. Such that ESG practices are embedded in our business and informed decision-making. And frankly, I don't need to say much more about that, because even this morning, as you were listening to the presentation, we counted no fewer than 25 instances where ESG issues were raised as part of the business proposition. And frankly, that's how it should be. ESG issues are good for people, they're good for the world, and they're also good for business. Secondly, second prong is the planet. The planet and the environmental focus at Air Canada. And there, basically two-pronged, leave less and do more. And I refer you to the corporate sustainability of the report to know what that all means. We'll talk a bit about some of that later. And finally, thirdly, there's a focus on people, on the social elements. And on that, I'm going to turn it over back to you, Arielle to speak about your experience and your insights into the culture and then to diversity, equity and inclusion at Air Canada.

Thanks, Marc. Always a pleasure to talk about our winning culture. In fact, when I was reflecting and preparing for this, I remember that in 2019, when I took the stage at our Investor Day, my presentation was about how our culture had become a competitive advantage. And that remains true, obviously. And I have to say, as we sit here 2 years into the pandemic or coming out of the pandemic, they've been really rough years, very brutal years for everyone on the personal front and the professional front, and none of us would have wanted the culture that we built to be tested, but it was tested. And we're very proud to say that it surpassed that test or passed that test. Because essentially, at the beginning of the pandemic, there were really, really tough decisions and really culture testing decisions that had to be made. Things like the decision to furlough 10,000 colleagues with a view to preserving the business. Really, really tough decisions that could have really broken a company and didn't, thanks to the foundation that we had built. And then very early on in the pandemic and to this day, our employees were and remain on the front line of the pandemic. They never stop being on the front line of the pandemic. In the very beginning, repatriating Canadians, when borders were closing everywhere, and no one quite knew what that meant. Did that mean that you could be stuck where you were, Canadians clamoring to get home. Our employees didn't hesitate. In those days, no one knew what this virus was. No one knew what kind of PPE could or couldn't protect you, and our employees did what was necessary, brought Canadians home. And then continued with cargo, obviously, with bringing in medicine and necessary supplies and PPE and eventually, vaccines, as vaccines became available. So throughout the pandemic, our culture was really, really tested. And as I said, came through with flying colors, makes us tremendously proud to see the resilience that our employees displayed every single day over those 2 years. And really, that culture that I talked about that we built over the last 12 years or so is really built on 2 things: transparency and trust. And those are things that are going to carry us forward, but those are also, if you think about it, the foundation to DEI, you need to be in a place where you feel safe and where you trust. That's what DEI is truly all about, if you really think about it. So historically, DEI for us started with women. Aviation is, to a large extent, historically, a male-dominated industry in many respects. And we started very early on to advance women within our organization, show women what was possible at every single level of the operation, in nontraditional roles. So really, that's where we started with, women in aviation internally, and with other organizations that promote women in aviation. We, of course, like many organizations are expanding our diversity efforts, our DEI efforts into diversity beyond gender. And how we're doing that, to a large extent, is with a lot of good consultation. So back to trust and transparency, we have set up employee resource groups, because we don't know at all. We need to hear from our employees what's important to them from every group and from which they come. So we set up these ERG groups to inform us. Another sort of foundation of our culture is our bilingualism. We are very, very proudly bilingual. Our employees are excessively proud of how bilingual we are. We are, in fact, the only airline in Canada that has bilingualism as a core value to the extent that we do, and that's something that we're very proud about. And it goes beyond just French-English. We also have employees that speak multiple, multiple route-specific languages. And again, if you think of bilingualism and speaking many languages, that also creates a lot of cultural awareness, which also leads to a safe DEI environment. So through that, our employees are very cultural aware, and we talk about that a lot. So I don't want to -- As Marc said, we're not going to get into too many numbers, and many of the presentations before us had some numbers, but I will underscore again the commitments that the Board have made to advance women at the Board. And what I would say about our hiring practices is we actually don't set targets. And as part of the ERGs, when we consult our employees, they don't want us to set targets for hiring. However, we certainly, in every hire that we do, we keep an eye on diversity without actually wanting to meet a specific target. And then the last thing I'll say on that in terms of numbers is Mike talked about our BlackNorth Initiative, the CEO pledge, the BlackNorth Initiative to get to 3.5% Black representation, both in senior management and at the Board. And we're actually in relatively good shape there to the extent that we recently asked our employees to self-declare if they wanted to, and we have now identified that we have 3.5% already of Black self-declared employees in our middle management. And if you think about it, middle management is exactly that, the pipeline to senior leadership. So we hope to be in really good shape to meet those targets 2025. So with that, Marc, you talked about our general approach to ESG, and I now gave a few numbers, so maybe, you can go a little bit deeper and give us a few metrics around ESG.

So thank you. So we have a few minutes to go. So I'll give you some -- a few numbers. And if you do a combination of the -- what I'm going to say, you can actually understand our climate action plan and ambition. And that is 0, 20, 30 and 50. So we're going to net -- we announced in March 2021 that we're going to net 0 in 2050. And on the way to doing that by 2030, we're going to reduce by 20% our GHG emissions in our air operations and 30% in our ground operations. So that gets you to 2050 net 0, 2030 -- and 20%, 30%. Finally, there's -- we're going to invest $50 million in that ambition. So how are we going to do that? We're going to work on the fleet and operations. And you've heard a lot about the fleet renewal. That's a big part of our ambition. There's going to have to be innovation, there's no question. We want to lead in that, but also, we want to partner with others and explore the possibilities to -- and the viability of other technologies in our industry. And 2 final points, though, it's about sustainable aviation fuels, which the IATA has listed as a key element to helping the industry achieve our emissions goals, and it's going to be essential to get the production of SaaS up. Right now there's very high demand, relatively low, if not, very low production. And clearly, where we have -- where we want to with greater production of SaaS. And that includes in Canada, and we're very proud to be a member of the Canadian Council of Sustainable Aviation Fuels, C-SAF in -- who is going to work hard at developing SAFs in Canada. And finally, in Canadian reductions -- carbon reductions and removals, we're very happy to be partnering with an agreement with the Canadian firm called Carbon Engineering, who is exploring the use of that company's direct air capture technology. So with that, I'm going to turn it back to you because we do want to talk about our efforts around humanitarian matters in the world.

Sure. So thanks, Marc. So what I'd say in the time that we have left on humanitarian efforts is we've always wanted to be leaders in this area, but we also know that we need to cooperate with others, and we're only as good as the collective us who work towards these humanitarian efforts. So I'll talk a little bit about the Air Canada Foundation, because, in fact, the Air Canada Foundation is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year. And it actually is an interesting story, how it came to be, is the Air Canada Foundation came to be out of the flood and the earthquakes in Haiti in 2012. So right after those earthquakes, our employees absolutely wanted to do something, and we all wanted to do something. And basically, we just pulled together volunteers, sent over aircraft full of supplies and brought back orphans into Canada. And following that, we did a bit of a postmortem and realized that while that was tremendously successful, it was also a little bit chaotic and that we need a little bit of structure around this, and that's how Air Canada Foundation came to be. And in the last 10 years, we've really been at the forefront of humanitarian efforts, both within Canada and globally as a global champion. So some very recent examples. 2021 was, in addition to the pandemic, a devastating year for natural disasters. And so what we did in 2021 is we did send volunteers over for the floods in British Columbia and Ontario to help with the cleanup efforts. So that's something that we are very, very involved in at the outset. It was very hard to watch and we wanted to be involved. And then in Nunavut, we sent over -- when there was a state of emergency declared and really, no potable water, we sent over millions of gallons of potable water to make sure that we could help there. In Afghanistan, we helped bring refugees back and we did that with some of our staff who actually were able to speak Arabic and Farsi on the flights and help bring the refugees back, which was extremely touching and gratifying for us. And of course, I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about Ukraine. It's obviously very tough for all of us to see what's going on in the world right now in that devastation. And again, as and our employees, and I know, all of you were desperate to help, so we did a few things there. Right now we've collected some donations. Again, a big grassroots from our employees. We've already raised over $170,000. On March 9, you probably may have seen that we had a humanitarian flight go over with hospital beds and supplies, and we brought them into Poland and they made their way into the Ukraine. We also continue to bring over much needed supplies through our cargo operations. And in fact, many of you in the room have probably helped directly as well, because right now for any purchase, a direct purchase on aircanada.com, $10 go towards the Ukraine relief funds and go directly to that cause. So I'm -- so thank you to all of you who have already participated. You can also donate, I think Lucie mentioned, in one of her presentations. You can also donate Aeroplan points to the relief efforts. So those are just to give you a little bit of a taste, but it's a long history. It's 10 years of history and many more years to come. We don't hesitate to jump in when we can. It's also been reported. You'll have read that we are in continued conversations with the government as they decide how and when they will bring back refugees from the Ukraine, we are certainly available and poised and ready to participate in any way we can. So concluding on our humanitarian efforts, as we often say, doing well definitely includes for us doing good, and we don't hesitate to do good when we can as part of our doing well. So with that, Marc?

Yes. So thank you very much for listening in. We have -- we hope we've given you a glimpse of what we're doing and why we're doing it. We also understand our obligation to you, our investors and to our stakeholders to give you some regular reporting, and we've done that in our annual report. We've done that in our corporate sustainability report and others, but we're also going to do it for the first time in our TCFD report later this year. So we're looking forward to hearing from you as to what you think we have to say about our initiatives. And I think at this point, we have one last coach, Martin St. Louis from the Canadiens.

Here we go.

You don't realize how high you can go. And I think the biggest thing as human is we get complacent and satisfied, and I believe that good is the enemy of great, because good is acceptable. And if nobody is going to say anything about it, but like, how do you get to great, it's another level. And I think that's what it means. Adversity to me or obstacles are usually step 1 of growth. And so I think they're really important in any walks of life to get through those. And it's an opportunity to react, to act of -- maybe a little step back. And I believe that you get judged in life when things are not going so well and how do you respond way more than if things are going well and how you keep doing it.

Great. So we've got some 2 very interesting items still to go, plus lunch. And I just want to say thank you. Thank you for joining us today. We do hope that you appreciate the insights provided as well as the strategy we've put in place to return to profitability and certainly, increase long-term shareholder value. Through our focus on these priorities, propelled by our people and award-winning culture, we aim to command a competitive position emerging from the pandemic and rise higher as a Canadian global champion. Now as we transition to question-and-answer period, please turn your attention once more to the screen. [Presentation]

Sorry. I'm waiting for my cue.

We are now ready for questions. Are there any questions from the audience? I see Walter has a question in the back.

I just want to say, it's great to be back in person. Commercials were great. They gave me a little tingles, so well done on that. So I guess going to 2024 capacity, I'd like to get a sense of the business or the mix of the travel you're assuming in that year. I know you said 75% to 80% of 2023 would be business travel, and then you're going to 95% total capacity in 2024. So I'm trying to get a sense, is business travel is going to ramp up quite significantly in 2024? Or is it going to stay at that kind of 80% level, which implies that leisure will be much above 100%? So I'm trying to get a sense of that leisure -- or that leisure business travel mix in 2024.

Sorry. We're assuming that by the time we reach 2023, 2024, that corporate demand the way we know it, will most likely be returned. Now we're expecting that maybe, some of the patterns might change a little bit, but we think by 2024, corporate demand will have returned. We're also counting on the fact that as we continue with leisure demand, we're going to continue to see more premium leisure traffic by the time we hit '23, 2024. So I don't know if that answers your question, but definitely, we're assuming that by the time we -- next 2 years or so, our corporate demand will have returned.

Jamie Baker with JPMorgan. So I was interested in what Mark Galardo had to say about sort of a post-COVID revenue management evolution or advancement, because that's not a theme that I've heard from other airlines. So could you add a little bit more color on that? And just from a passenger perspective, offer optimization, what should I expect as an Air Canada passenger? And how does that contribute to margins?

Maybe I can take that one. I'm actually -- I find it really nice to hear you say that it's something that you don't often hear about. But I will tell you since probably, 2015 for us on the RM side, on the revenue management side, we did establish a very, very clear road map. And that ended with our new OD systems. And it was imperative for us to be able to get those tools because we were expanding into international markets. This is the way we look at it. So what Mark described is sort of our second road map. It's Phase 2 of our plan on the RM side, and we recognize that to meet the objectives that we set out for ourselves. So to better engage with customers, in order for us to be able to expand in other geographies, all those things, we need to be able to optimize the revenue offer. And when you talk about specific offers for customers, think about what, for example, Mark Nasr's team could do with the Aeroplan members. So the next phase is giving us the ability to produce better yields, so get some ancillary, get some yield upside from things that are not necessarily published across all channels. So it's an opportunity for us to be able to capture new demand, of course, but also, at a better yield. So this is definitely our second road map on the RM side.

It's Chris Murray from ATB Capital Markets. Let me add on Walter's comment about it's nice to begin back up in the air and flying around a little bit. I guess my first question, maybe going back to some of the bridge to 2024. Just looking at that 9% number, regulatory changes and inflation. If you were to break that down, certainly, we heard about pilot fatigue rules. But can you talk a little bit about what else might be in there? What buckets could be there in terms of things like airport charges or what we should be expecting? And is there any room that you see to be able to modify some of that on a go-forward basis?

Thanks. Thanks, Chris. All in all -- there we go. So in that 9% bucket, as you would expect, Chris, as you look really across the entire P&L line under all of the expense categories. As I said, each particular item, we see areas where inflation will hit as we see in airport charges. We've seen it in maintenance. We've seen it in materials. We see it in hotels. Really, all of those line items will have some upward pressure. But the point is of all of that is that our ability, really, to manage through that and to offset that by activity in terms of continual cost transformation, continuous sort of work on CASM reductions, operational efficiencies. You've heard a lot about the technology investments we're making. So we're looking at all of those in terms of improving productivity enhancements there that really will help drive down lower cost and ability sort of to manage through those inflationary headwinds. We're calling out specifically what's in each category is difficult to do over the time, but we know generally, we see this uptrend in costs, but more importantly, our ability to manage through that.

If I can ask one more question. Just on the A321XLR, you've made the comment that it helps you with your countercyclical financial profile. But you also, I think, kind of alluded to the fact that when the plane is fully engaged, that it'll offer additional CASM opportunities. I guess a couple of parts to that. One, can you explain exactly how you're thinking about deploying that aircraft? And what gives the confidence to get that benefit on the financial profile? And is there anything that you can do to pull forward those aircraft, considering it looks like you're going to be a little capacity challenged in 2024? And it looks like there's a good cost opportunity, revenue opportunity attached to it.

Believe me, if you heard Mark's excitement about getting to 220 and the 321, if we could have them tomorrow, we would love to get it. But unfortunately, there is a little bit of long ramp-up in terms of ability to [ meet ] configuration, but more importantly, it's also -- Chris, what happened is really where we were in the planning process and ability to get out and get in positions given the demand for that aircraft. But despite the strong demand for the XLRs, we were able to get some very good positions early on to get them in 2024. And we talk about offsetting seasonality, one of the things that you saw perhaps in previous iterations, and we had Rouge and we had 767 capacity that swung from Europe and then to Caribbean was surely it was just a little bit too much in terms of capacity and it didn't really help very much with seasonality. But now with the right size configuration and the size of the XLR, that we won't see that sort of impact that we get this big seasonality hit that hits us -- that allows us now to better manage through that. And then to the extent that the ability in terms of transatlantic and transcon missions, there's a little bit more of a -- under that size of the configuration, more of a profile of demand that you can meet really throughout the year as opposed to, again, too much capacity that you have to swing into leisure markets. And that really will get us -- will help really offset seasonality. And of course, then the economics of the airplane are really super for us, as you saw them.

Maybe, it's me over here. Just -- Kevin from CIBC. Just one for me. I'm just wondering, on the Sixth Freedom traffic you have now, are you working with the hub airports to match what you think your flow of traffic is going to be, with the resources they need to put in place to ensure a more seamless, I guess, transition as Americans come through one of your airports off to Europe and maybe, the Pacific? Just wondering how you're working with your airports here to ensure that everyone is aligned.

In terms of the connectivity of the traffic?

[indiscernible]

Yes. So the Sixth Freedom is obviously a very important part of Air Canada's overall strategy, and it has been for a while. We've had a lot of internal working groups that have identified the passenger flow requirements and opportunities to achieve the seamless passenger experience that we're looking at. We've put into place with the airport authorities a wide variety of programs, including the ITD program, international, domestic, as well as ITI, international to international. Airport by airport, we work with each airport authority for the specifics of the geography and the facilities that they have and the specific passenger flow that exists to try to ensure that we can have the most seamless customer experience. I would say, at this point, we're very, very pleased with the efficiency that we have with that, working both with Air Canada mainline and Air Canada Express and also, with the airport authorities. So it's been a high priority. It's been a project we've been working on for some time, and we do it airport by airport.

Konark.

Konark Gupta from Scotiabank. So a couple of questions, one for Amos, one for Jason on cargo. First of all, maybe, Amos, on free cash flow, just kind of looking at 5 factors that influenced free cash here. And wondering if you can provide any color on that. So one is in the bookings. Certainly, you are seeing bookings advancing very well now. So any thoughts on assumptions behind those bookings and the free cash. Second is on the Aeroplan and third, on cargo. Those seem to be incremental contributors, moving ahead, certainly. And the fourth and fifth are CapEx and taxes. So certainly, you talked about CapEx, $1.5-ish billion a year, which is kind of down from what you were expecting pre-pandemic for the next 3 years. And I presume you will not pay any cash taxes for many years. So any thoughts on free cash in terms of why you're expecting the numbers to be below what you were expecting 3 years ago?

Thanks, Konark. The biggest issue that we have in terms of free cash flow, again, what we had back in 2019 is the fact that we're rebuilding the airline. And so right now, we're in a period of -- we're just sort of catching up. You saw where we are from a capacity perspective and we're generating. So while all of those are contributors, cargo, Aeroplan, all of the investments we've been making, but we're sort of starting right now, as you see from a couple of years down the road of building back up to 95% of our capacity by 2024. So it's the ramp-up at the end of the day that is generating less cash flow than we saw before. When we came, when we talked to you back in 2019, that was a period where we had a good run rate moving forward. And really, we're hitting it sort of in all cylinders, but now, we had this reset. So the reset is what is dampening cash flow.

Sorry. And just a follow-up for Jason or Lucie or Mike, you want to take it. On the cargo, so Europe -- or not Europe, but like, I think Canada's biggest player in the cargo market, certainly, Cargojet. These guys have a dominating position in Canada domestic and recently, they signed an agreement with DHL for international. I'm just hoping if you can size us -- for us, the market opportunity for your cargo business. Like certainly, DHL is a dominant player in the transatlantic market. What do you see out there for cargo business for you guys, besides what you have done in the pandemic, which can be arguably be seen as short-lived, be it for the governments, for the PPEs and that kind of things? So yes, any help there.

I think... I was going to suggest, we could -- there we go -- offer the microphone to Jason.

I'll try to answer that. So when we talk about the PPE and -- you could say this, this was short lived. But our network is our value. And you see that the outside actors, DHL is a top 20 freight forwarder as well. And our freight forwarders are our partners, and that's our strength. And the network that we offer brings the value to us. So freighters are really complementary to our passive network. So it's not a -- we're not going after PPE. This was a business case that wasn't built on today. It's really built on long term growing alongside our passenger fleet.

We will take just one last question.

Savi Syth from Raymond James. Just 2 quick questions. Just the first one on Sixth Freedom, since it's such important kind of component. I was curious if you can share some stats on how much it was in 2019 as a part of your list or some kind of engage, and what you think you can get to you by 2024 when the fleet comes back? And then maybe on my second question. Just I know you mentioned Rouge and kind of revisiting the strategy there. I was wondering if you can provide a little bit more color on the potential avenues that you can kind of take Rouge.

So maybe, I'll start with the Sixth Freedom. And I will tell you, certainly, as we come out of the COVID crisis for us, the Sixth Freedom [indiscernible] that we looked to pursue the quickest. And you'll see, if you look at Mark's network plan, we were the first to reintroduce our transborder services as soon as we possibly could to do exactly that, to be able to support the Sixth Freedom growth. And I probably should have also indicated a little bit earlier when we talked about corporate. It's also one other area for us where we certainly have a really good opportunity to be able to capture even more corporate demand coming out of the United States. But we've set a goal for ourselves in 2017 when we really started -- 2016, 2017, when we really started our ambition to grow Sixth Freedom. And I would say to you that for this year, so 2022, '23 and beyond, we've significantly increased our target. So based on the network that we have and the potential for Air Canada, with the product that we offer, we will definitely exceed 2019 levels when it comes to Sixth Freedom, without a doubt. Now with respect to Rouge, as I indicated a little bit earlier, we're in a little bit of a transition period here. So in the immediate term, the fact that Rouge is assigned to a narrow-body aircraft, it's very helpful for us, but we are now in the process of really relooking at the mission for Rouge and how we best want to proceed in the years to come. So more to come on the Rouge front.

Tim James from TD Securities. A question, I guess, probably for Lucie here. I'm wondering if you can talk about how you see the yield environment unfolding, in general terms, through your 2024 financial timeframe. And I'm thinking about a reference, maybe, to Air Canada's pricing power as well as maybe, how you view traveler willingness to accept higher fares. And what I'm getting at is I assume, coming out of this pandemic, we're not talking about kind of a normal economic cycle and what you've experienced in the past in terms of fares and yields. But is there going to be a period where the pent-up demand means travelers are willing to pay virtually anything or do you need to offer stimulative fares in order to get people flying? How do you kind of see the yield environment evolve over the next 3 to 4 years?

Okay. So maybe, I can comment a little bit just based on some things that we're currently observing. So it stands to reason that as we come out of COVID, there is a necessity to stimulate demand a little bit here which we've done, and we are also very competitive. I mean you can see also what our -- what's happening in the environment. At the same time, we are looking to optimize our revenues here. And what always gives us comfort is the fact that we have the ability to respond differently in different markets to be able to hold the yield. So we have different levers that we can apply, which means that we can respond transborder in one way differently than what we can do in domestic Canada. At the same time, when you look at markets like Canada, we know that the environment now is extremely competitive. We can see that the competition is intensifying here. It's important for us to always be able to ensure that we don't dilute any revenues here. And just to go back to some of the conversations we were having a little bit earlier on RM tools, we talked about willingness to pay. So bringing in models that actually help us and be able to stimulate demand, but at the same time, make sure that we don't spill any revenues here. So there's no doubt in my view. I think as we look at the future, there's no doubt that the environment will be competitive. But we do have a very solid premium offering, we have a solid corporate offering. We also, over the last 2 years, have been able to develop new leisure premium products that help us push up the yield. And through all the work that we're also doing with Mark's team on the Aeroplan front, we're confident that we're going to be able to push the yield up a little bit. So coming out of COVID, it's not exactly like 2019. We've had time to introduce new tools. But at the same time, it's obviously imperative for us to make sure that we return to profitability here. The yield is an important asset, of course, and we do everything to manage that.

I have another question if I may, Mike? I have a question. So we spent the whole day speaking about what Rise Higher means for Air Canada. And I really wonder what that means in a different context and actually, maybe, for athletes, what does it mean for athletes. And the 2022 Beijing Olympic and Paralympic Games just concluded, and Air Canada was a very proud official airline for Team Canada. And so as I think about this, maybe this question is better suited for an actual gold medalist. So it is my honor to welcome our next guest, straight from Deux-Montagnes, Quebec. He had dominated the top of the world. He has -- he is the greatest of all time in mogul skiing. He has won Olympic gold, 2 times Olympic silver, and most recently with the Beijing Olympics. He has been 6x the world champion. He has won 74 World Cup wins. He holds 21 crystal globes and is also a Guinness World Record holder. [indiscernible] Welcome Mikaël Kingsbury.

I'm going to have the pleasure of asking Mikaël a bunch of questions, a couple of personal questions and a couple of Rise Higher type questions. But first of all, I want to congratulate you on your incredible efforts. You make us proud as Canadians too for what you've accomplished. This is truly amazing.

Thank you.

And so what qualities would you say are necessary to achieve what you achieved?

Thanks a lot. I guess I'm a hard worker. And I'm also a dreamer, and I never stopped believing in myself. I mean if you combine fun, hard work and dedication, it can bring you -- it can bring you anywhere. And for me, since I was a kid, my dream was to win the Olympics and now -- when I was 10 years old. Now I'm 29 and I have 3 Olympic medal, the most in my sports industry. So it's -- yes, it's amazing.

Great. You probably heard today some of our comments about Rise Higher, kind of a framework we're living here at Air Canada going forward. And I was taken by one of your favorite comments, which is impossible is nothing. So can you -- how does that apply to competing? How do you come up with that concept? And how does that apply to your competitive spirit?

Yes. Well, when I was a kid growing up, it seemed like the highest level, the Olympic seems like impossible to get. And a lot of people were telling me, I was like -- when I was a kid, I was telling like, one day, I'll be at the Olympics and -- to my teachers or to people and the people are like, yes, it's far away, and you got to work hard. And yes, like I said earlier. And I never stopped believing that I could do it. For me, rising higher -- like, is -- I -- a lot of people, they dream of just making it to the World Cup tour and making it to the Olympics. And for me, it was clear in my head, I was 10 years old, I watched the South Lake City Olympics and when I saw moguls on TV, I was like, one day, I'll be there. And my goal was not just to be part of it, it was to be the best to wear the yellow bib. To be the bib #1, to win a gold medal, win Crystal Globes and I always saw myself doing it. And I think if you believe in yourself -- I mean, it works. If it works for me, it can work for anyone.

Great. You probably heard as well, Rise Higher from our perspective, involves taking some risk.

Yes.

And tell me about what risk you took that paid off.

Well, you have to take a lot of risk. In my sport, sometime in my life, I took some risk that didn't pay off. 1.5 years ago, I broke 2 vertebra in my back in training before the beginning of the World Cup tour. And I mean, coming back was -- 8 weeks after was taking a risk, but everything was calculated. I have a great team around me and -- yes, took some risk. And I was able to went above my fears because when you're yourself, it's scary. And you have to be -- 8 week-ish after my injury when everything was kind of better to be able to win my first event back. So yes, that was taking some risk, but I guess, I'm the kind of guy that takes risk every day in my sport to be at the best. At the top, you have to take risk, but they are calculated, too.

Yes. Well, yes. So my personal point on that is that one time I took a risk it went down a mogul black diamond, and I never went and get it. I've never been so sore in my life, but -- so what's next for you?

What's next for me? Well, the Olympics are over. I won in 2018 and I got silver, so I'm very happy. I mean I did the best as I could. But I feel I still have some more in me. And I finished the season after the Olympics winning the 3 events right after. So that was kind of a little redemption. I'm very satisfied to win another medal, but still plenty in me. So I'm going to take a little bit of rest, work super hard, talk with my coaches to make the best plan for the next 4 years and be in the start gate and be the best athlete I can be in 2026.

Right. Well, we'd love to see you on the podium again, and you will be. So you'll -- in that 4-year period, I assume you'll have some free time. Where would you like to go for vacation?

I love traveling, and I'm very lucky I get to travel. I get to be in the best airline often.

Good shot, Mikaël.

Yes. And I really like those seats in front, too. No, but yes, I mean I love Europe. There's so many beautiful places in Europe to travel to. And yes, I'm excited to take some vacation. The past 2 years have been harder for everyone, but for us, athletes, it was hard trying to stay negative all the time. And sometimes, you have to take your choices or sacrifices. Do not see your family or loved one. And I'm excited to go with my girlfriend or some family members and go to Europe and Chile. So I'm very excited for that.

Good. Good. We will love to see you on our planes as much as possible. So again, thank you very much for taking the time to be here today. And you're going to be here for lunch and certainly, can meet everyone here. Honestly, Air Canada is very, very proud to support Team Canada and athletes like you. And we're more than inspired by the drive and your talent and your focus and your determination to do better. And I think it's a complete alignment with what we're trying to do here at Air Canada as well, and that's Rise Higher. Thank you very, very much.

Thank you. I appreciate it.

When I signed up for these tools, I didn't realize how high they would be. So they are not the petite size, I realized this morning. And as you can see, I would do horribly in mogul skiing if I can't get off the stool properly. So this concludes our program. We hope you enjoyed your morning. Before we turn to lunch, please allow me to just thank the dream team that has made this event possible. They know who they are, Jamie, Ivan, Elise, Fernand, Liby. At home, [ Emily ], Marie Claire, Nas. I hope I haven't missed anyone, the TKNL crew, Martin, Kiki, Stephanie, [Foreign Language]. And so we are pleased to be offering you lunch. Menu is specifically designed by David Hawksworth, one of our signature service chefs. And for those of you who have signed up for activities tomorrow, we look forward to seeing you. And if you have any questions, feel free to come and see us at the check-in counter. So thank you very much for your attention. We hope you enjoy the program. Have a great day. [Foreign Language].