Air Canada CEO Michael Rousseau to Retire in 2026 |

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Air Canada has announced that its current President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Michael Rousseau, will retire by the end of September 2026, leaving the airline after more than five years at the helm.

On March 30, 2026, Air Canada confirmed that Rousseau will retire at the end of September 2026. While the airline did not detail its current CEO’s successor, it pointed out that its Board of Directors “has had a longstanding focus on CEO succession planning.”

As a result, “work has been underway for more than two years on a comprehensive internal development program for high-potential executives,” and an external search was launched in January to identify potential candidates to take over the company.

However, Air Canada specifically noted that the Board has considered a number of skills when evaluating potential candidates, including “the ability to communicate in French.”

Following the Air Canada Express flight AC 8646 accident at New York LaGuardia Airport (LGA) on March 22, when the regional jet, operated by Jazz Aviation, collided with a fire truck on an active runway, resulting in the death of two pilots, Rousseau released a statement that was only in English.

That drew ire from Canadian politicians, including Prime Minister Mark Carney. On March 25, Carney reiterated that Canada is a bilingual country and that companies such as Air Canada “have a responsibility to always communicate in both official languages,” which are English and French.

“I am very disappointed, as others are, rightly so, in this unilingual message of the CEO of Air Canada, […] particularly in these circumstances.”

In response, Rousseau’s statement read that he once again expresses “my deepest condolences to the families” of the two Jazz Aviation pilots, noting that he is “deeply saddened that my inability to speak French has diverted attention from the profound grief of the families and the great resilience of Air Canada’s employees, who have demonstrated outstanding professionalism despite the events of the past few days.”

Vagn Sørensen, the Chair of the Board of Air Canada, thanked Rousseau for his service, including “the determined leadership he has provided not only in steering our company through the 2007-2008 financial crisis, COVID and other challenges, but also in capturing opportunities such as the acquisition of Aeroplan, in restoring the solvency of our pension plans and in advancing customer centricity, and employee well-being priorities.”

Rousseau has been the CEO of Air Canada since February 2021, having served as the Deputy CEO and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of the Canadian carrier since January 2019. The outgoing CEO has been at Air Canada since 2007.