{"id":693640,"date":"2026-03-31T00:56:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T00:56:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/693640\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T00:56:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T00:56:15","slug":"air-canada-says-its-ceo-will-retire-in-wake-of-his-english-only-crash-message","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/693640\/","title":{"rendered":"Air Canada says its CEO will retire in wake of his English-only crash message"},"content":{"rendered":"

TORONTO (AP) \u2014 Air Canada announced Monday that its CEO will retire later this year, after Michael Rousseau<\/a> was criticized for his English-only message of condolence following this month\u2019s deadly crash<\/a> in New York.<\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s largest airline, based in French-speaking Quebec, said that Rousseau, 68, told the board he will leave by the end of the third quarter.<\/p>\n

Canada is an officially bilingual nation, and Prime Minister Mark Carney said that Rousseau\u2019s decision to retire is \u201cappropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is essential that the next CEO of Air Canada is bilingual,\u201d Carney said. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n AP AUDIO: Air Canada CEO will retire this year after his English-only crash message was criticized\n <\/p>\n

AP correspondent Julie Walker reports Air Canada\u2019s CEO will retire this year after his English-only crash message was criticized.<\/p>\n

Carney had said the English-only message showed a lack of compassion and judgment. Quebec\u2019s premier and others called on the airline executive to resign.<\/p>\n

\u201dI salute the decision of Air Canada CEO Michael Rousseau to step down from his position. The Air Canada board of directors will have to ensure that the next CEO speaks French,\u201d Quebec Premier Fran\u00e7ois Legault said in a statement. <\/p>\n

Antoine Forest, one of the two pilots killed in the crash<\/a> at LaGuardia Airport, was a French-speaking Quebecer. Forest and Mackenzie Gunther died when the Air Canada Jazz flight from Montreal collided with a fire truck on the runway shortly after landing.<\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s largest airline is headquartered in Montreal. Rousseau previously had been criticized for not speaking French. He delivered his condolence video message in English, with French subtitles. The Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages has received hundreds of complaints about it.<\/p>\n

Steven MacKinnon, Canada\u2019s transport minister, thanked Rousseau in a social media post and said that the government will continue to work closely with Air Canada to ensure that it \u201cprovides safe, reliable, affordable, and bilingual service to all Canadians.\u201d<\/p>\n

Legault noted that when Rousseau was appointed president of the airline in February 2021, he promised to learn French.<\/p>\n

Quebec\u2019s identity has been contentious since the 1760s, when the British completed their takeover of what was then called New France. Quebec is about 80% French-speaking.<\/p>\n

\u201cLanguage is a highly political issue in Canada and the Air Canada leadership has been aware of that for a very long time,\u201d said Daniel B\u00e9land, a political science professor at McGill University in Montreal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that Rousseau had promised to learn French back in 2021 but failed to deliver amidst his sky-high level of compensation did not help him in the court of public opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jason Kenney, a former Conservative Cabinet minister, has said that he would rather the CEO of Canada\u2019s flagship carrier focus his scarce time on safety and reliability than language training.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO (AP) \u2014 Air Canada announced Monday that its CEO will retire later this year, after Michael Rousseau…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":693641,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[6],"tags":[2696,20577,285295,64,2147,146298,4216,290423,57,163841,3466,18809,92375,405,403,80,2151,290424,290425,1164,61,67,132,68,107],"class_list":["post-693640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-accidents","tag-air-canada","tag-antoine-forest","tag-business","tag-canada","tag-daniel-bland","tag-fires","tag-franois-legault","tag-general-news","tag-jason-kenney","tag-language","tag-mark-carney","tag-michael-rousseau","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-politics","tag-quebec","tag-quebec-city","tag-steven-mackinnon","tag-travel","tag-u-s-news","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-world-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=693640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/693641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=693640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=693640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=693640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}