Air Canada Inc threatens to walk away from Bombardier CSeries deal if legislation over maintenance isn’t passed

Air Canada is threatening to walk away from its plan to buy up to 75 CSeries jets from Bombardier unless the federal govt gives it more flexibility over where it does its maintenance work. In testimony that appears to contradict the airline’s claims that politics had nothing to do with its decision to order the CSeries, an executive told a Senate committee reviewing changes to the legislation that governs Air Canada that it won’t buy the aircraft unless the govt gives it more latitude. “The point around this is that we are not prepared to make that scope of a financial commitment in an environment of legal uncertainty,” Kevin Howlett, Air Canada’s senior VP of govt affairs and regional markets, told the Senate’s transport and communications committee this week. <br/>