Air Canada is gearing up for a new phase of the pandemic

As air travel collapsed in the early days of the pandemic, many passenger planes got a makeover, with airlines stripping out seats and converting empty cabins into cargo holds. At first, these so-called “cabin freighters” airlifted ventilators, masks, and other crucial medical supplies to hard-hit hospitals. Eventually, as factory shutdowns and port closures tangled the world’s supply chains, the planes transported everything from mayonnaise to dog food. Air Canada was one of the first airlines in the world to yank the seats out of part of its passenger fleet in April 2020, three months after the first confirmed Canadian covid case. The seatless configurations served the company well as chaos in the container ship industry drove up the price of air cargo. But now, Air Canada is betting on the start of a new phase of the pandemic. To prepare, it’s reinstalling seats in the 11 planes it converted to seatless cabin freighters and will return them to passenger service by May. “I believe the era of cabin freighters is over. They served a great service at a poignant time,” Air Canada cargo head Jason Berry said. “However, we see the need and demand for this configuration coming to an end by [the third quarter], as passenger capacity begins to return closer to pre-pandemic levels.” Canada, like much of the world, is emerging from its most dramatic spike of covid cases yet, fueled by the highly infectious omicron variant. By the end of January, cases had dropped by more than half from their peak that month. Before omicron, Canadian passenger air travel had been recovering from its pandemic lows. Demand fell sharply once again during the worst of the omicron wave, but by the end of January, daily air traveler numbers once again started to tick up.<br/>