Global Airport News

Air Canada is finding some support from lenders as it struggles to solve its financial Rubik's Cube, the cash-strapped airline's chief executive said on Wednesday.

Tight credit markets have complicated discussions with the lenders that Canada's largest airline has approached for short-term financing, Calin Rovinescu told reporters.

"There is a certain level of support. We have some very specific targets of what we need to raise as far as capital. We continue to be confident, but the discussions are ongoing," he said.

The airline was also able to offer some "clarifications" in weekend talks with its largest union, which recently voted down a tentative contract deal, but is scheduled to hold another vote next week, Rovinescu said.

Rovinescu declined to give specifics on the labor talks, citing the ongoing ratification vote. Members of the 12,300-member machinists union narrowly rejected a tentative deal last week amid fears about job security.

Labor peace at the airline is critical to it securing government approval of a moratorium on payments into its pension fund and a deal with the lenders — a situation Rovinescu compared to a Rubik's Cube puzzle.

"To get the colors all lined up you've got to turn it around and occasionally move backward and forwards to get the right outcome," he said.

He also sounded an upbeat note on the status of Air Canada's talks on getting pension relief from the federal government before the carrier is scheduled to make large funding payments at the end of July and in early August.

"We've had very good discussions with Ottawa about that. This is a process that has to be done at the same time (as getting labor agreements and new financing)," he told reporters on at Vancouver International Airport on Wednesday.