Air Transat

Air Transat

In 1987, Air Transat was founded by former Quebecair employees as a subsidiary of Trafic Voyages. On November 14, 1987, it made its opening flight traveling from Montreal Canada to Acapulco Mexico. After six years, Air Transat took in the obsolete maintenance base and aircraft of Nationair. At present, the company books 2.5 million passengers yearly. It is an entirely owned subsidiary of Transat A.T. Inc. that specializes in marketing, distributing, and organizing vacation travel and packages.

This airline is based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada and operates scheduled and charter flights serving ninety destinations in twenty five countries, including Acapulco Mexico. During the summer season, the airline's main destinations are Europe and domestic flights within Canada. In winter seasons, the airlines destinations are to the Caribbean, USA, Mexico, and South America.

Air Transat announced its signing an agreement to purchase British tour operator The Airline Seat Company £20.4 million on July 14, 2006. The Airline Seat Company between 1995 and 2006 established a large part of its business under the banner of Canadian Affair, an agent and tour operator for charter flights between the UK and Canada.

Air Transat concentrates in charter flights from a number of Canadian and European cities to vacation destinations mostly the south during winter and Europe during summer. As of July 2006, domestic schedule destinations include Montreal, Quebec, and Toronto. International scheduled destinations of Air Transat includes Amsterdam, Acapulco, Athens, Bordeaux, Brussels, Camaguey, Cancun, Cayo Coco, Cayo Largo, Dublin, Faro, Fort-de-France, Frankfurt, Glasgow, Hamburg, Holguin, Ixtapa, La Ceiba, La Romana, Lisbon, London Gatwick, Lyon, Madrid, Managua, Manchester, Manzanillo (CU), Manzanillo (MX), Marseilles, Montego Bay, Munich, Nantes, Nice, Panama City, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Pointe-á-Pitre, Ponta Delgada, Porlamar, Port-au-Prince, Porto, Puerto Vallarta, Punta Cana, Rome-Fiumicino, San Andres Island, San Jose, San Salvador, Santa Clara, Santiago, Santo Domingo, St. Maarten, Toulouse, and Varadero.

Air Transat also have inaugurated its nonstop service of routes of Montreal-Madrid last May 2006. It presently operates a weekly flight that departs from Montreal on Monday and Madrid on Tuesday. On June 2006 it added a second weekly flight that departs Montreal on Friday and Madrid on Saturday. Both Air Transat flight frequencies use an Airbus A310-300, where the Mondays and Tuesdays alternation originates and ends in Toronto.

As of April 2006, Air Transat fleet consists of eleven Airbus A310-300, three Airbus A330-200, and one Airbus A330-300 aircrafts. Although nothing tragic has happened with Air Transat flights, on August 24, 2001, Air Transat Flight 236, with 306 passengers and crew, en route from Toronto to Lisbon had to make an emergency landing in the Azores without engine power after it ran out of fuel over the Atlantic Ocean. It safely landed on the island of Terceira at Lajes Air Base.