Photo courtesy of Air Canada Rouge

If you’re like many aviation nerds around the country, you’ve probably noticed the “r” in Air Canada rouge has recently gotten bigger. Last month print messaging for Air Canada Rouge suddenly sported a new look, where the once lowercase “r” suddenly earned its “cap-tains” wings.

Execs aren’t commenting on why the little guy has a new look, other than to say the airline has “new branding.” But maybe it’s possible it was time for "Little r” to just grow up.

After all, Air Canada Rouge, the leisure carrier for Air Canada, is now celebrating its third birthday. What is three years in arilines years, anyway?

When “little r” was born three years ago, Air Canada Rouge operated just two Airbus 319 aircraft and two Boeing 767-300ER aircraft. The networked included 14 routes from Toronto and Montreal with service to the Caribbean and Europe. On its launch day, Canada Day, July 1, 2013 – “Little r” operated five flights with a total of 775 customers on board.

These days, “Big R” is a whole lot bigger. Air Canada Rouge has become an international powerhouse employing 1,600 employees with a fleet of 44 aircraft and a flight map that criss-crosses six continents and more than 100 destinations.

"After three years of rapid growth, we will mark our third birthday on Canada Day by proudly operating 123 flights carrying more than 23,000 customers,” said Benjamin Smith, president, Passenger Airlines at Air Canada. “Air Canada Rouge was first introduced as a leisure carrier in 2013 to serve Mexico, the Caribbean and select destinations in Europe. With investments in our fleet, network, and product, as well as our unique approach to on-board service, Air Canada Rouge has grown to play a key role within Air Canada."

And Air Canada Rouge keeps growing. In the past two months, the airline launched seven new international routes including service to Prague, Warsaw, Budapest, London-Gatwick and Glasgow from Toronto; and service from Vancouver to Dublin. It also introduced its first-ever flight to Africa with the new Montreal-Casablanca service, which now extends the Air Canada Rouge network to six continents.

"Air Canada Rouge has surpassed our expectations and has become integral to our international growth strategy,” said Smith. “Its popularity with leisure travellers and the efficiencies of its innovative business model are enabling Air Canada to effectively compete for vacation traffic and open new markets around the world."

Air Canada Rouge Fun Facts

• 11 million customers served

• 1,120 Rouge Crew (Flight Attendants); 330 were hired this year

• 480 pilots, growing to 500 by end of summer

• More than 6,600 children's faces painted with onboard face painting kits

• About 8,800 puppets created from air sickness bags

• More than 143,000 signature buttons such as "Happy Birthday" and "First Flight" distributed to customers celebrating special occasions onboard

For more information, visit www.flyrouge.com.

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