Air Canada’s CEO will retire after language outcry

Air Canada announced yesterday that CEO Michael Rousseau will be departing before the end of the third quarter. The decision comes one week after Rousseau offered condolences almost entirely in English following a crash at LaGuardia Airport that killed two Air Canada pilots.

To translate that…Despite Canada officially being a bilingual nation (French and English), and the airline being based in French-speaking Quebec, Rousseau doesn’t speak French. His video message after the incident began with a “bonjour,” ended with a “merci,” and was subtitled in French—but he otherwise spoke in English. One of the pilots who died in the crash, Antoine Forest, was from Quebec and spoke French.

An Air Canada spokesperson said Rousseau stepping down is unrelated to the language fallout, but the announcement came amid intense backlash.

The blowback: The Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages of Canada said it received 1,800 complaints about Rousseau’s video. That doesn’t include the one from Prime Minister Mark Carney, who publicly said Rousseau showed a lack of compassion and judgment.

Language barrier: When Rousseau took the CEO job in 2021, the company said he was taking intensive French training—and that his language skills would be part of his annual evaluation.

Bottom line: Air Canada’s stock fell hard after the announcement and closed 2% down for the day.—DL