Air Canada unveils first Airbus A220. What does it mean for travellers? - Global News | Canada News Media
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Air Canada unveils first Airbus A220. What does it mean for travellers? – Global News

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Air Canada unveiled its first Airbus A220 jetliner at an event in Montreal on Wednesday morning.

The 137-seat aircraft is the first of an eventual 45 the airline aims to have flying by 2022.

The narrow-body aircraft — whose maiden voyage takes off for Calgary from Montreal on Thursday — grants Canada’s largest airline greater range and cost savings.

Mark Galardo, Air Canada’s vice-president of network planning, said the A220 allows the airline to open new routes that have not been financially viable in the past.

“For [Air Canada], it’s an airplane that will allow us to grow in North America, launch several new routes,” said Galardo.

Galardo said the company is targeting the West Coast for its first set of new routes, which include Montreal to Seattle and Toronto to San Jose, both to begin in spring.

Passenger comfort

Rajbir Bhatti, an associate professor of supply chain management at Mount Royal University, said the introduction of the A220 will change the way Canadians fly.

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“The cabins are larger, the overhead baggage is larger and the seats are wider,” said Bhatti. “The entire gameplan of how you fly regionally is likely to change.”

The 19-inch-wide seats are the largest in Air Canada’s fleet, and in keeping with the trend of integrating technology where possible, each passenger has their own plug-in and USB port.

Patrick Tompkins, Air Canada’s chief A220 pilot, said passengers may not initially recognize they are on a new A220 but will notice changes during flights — especially regarding cabin noise.

“It’s quite comfortable in the back [of the plane],” Tompkins said. “I think they’ll notice the quiet. It’s quite a quiet airframe.”

Fuel efficiency

Air Canada said a big reason for choosing the A220 as its next regional plane was environmental sustainability.

Galardo said the new jet emits 20 per cent less carbon dioxide than similar aircraft and allows for lower operating costs because of the composite material used to build the plane.

But when asked if those cost savings could be passed along to customers, Galardo didn’t answer directly.

“For [Air Canada], the angle that we’re looking at is the creation of new route and the economic stimulus that comes from that,” Galardo said.

Bhatti said it is likely that the airline is looking into pricing changes.

“They may already be working on how to revenue share with the consumers and possibly pass on that benefit to them,” said Bhatti. “I’d love that as a consumer.”

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Canadian-built

The plane was called the C Series before Bombardier Inc. gave up a controlling stake in the aircraft program in 2018 to Europe-based Airbus, which christened it the A220.

The airline said the order for 45 planes carried a list price of US$3.8 billion and made Air Canada the second North American carrier to fly the A220.


READ MORE:
Bombardier’s C Series aircraft renamed by Airbus

All of Air Canada’s A220s on order will be built at what are now Airbus Canada’s facilities north of Montreal in Mirabel, Que.

Airbus also produces the planes at a new site in Mobile, Ala., mainly for U.S. customers including Delta, which operates 28 A220s and was the North American launch carrier for the plane.

Aircraft safety

Several European carriers have been operating the A220 for the past five years, including Swiss International Air Lines and airBaltic.

Swiss grounded its fleet of 29 A220s in October 2019 following “technical irregularities on various Swiss short-haul flights,” but after comprehensive engine inspections, the airline resumed normal flights just a day after the grounding, according to officials.

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Tompkins said those issues are to be expected when introducing a new plane.

“Every new platform and every new aircraft has some teething pains,” Tompkins said. “We anticipate that and we take a very proactive approach to safety.”


READ MORE:
JetBlue and new low-cost U.S. airline order 120 planes made by Bombardier

Galardo said Air Canada was made aware of the issue before taking delivery of its first A220.

“Transport Canada has… an airworthiness directive on the engine but as far as we’re concerned, there’s no major issue.”

Boeing implications

Air Canada’s launch of the A220 comes as the Boeing 737 MAX remains grounded worldwide.

Galardo said the large order of A220s was not impacted by recent events involving the Boeing aircraft.

“[The order was made] previous to the grounding of the MAX,” Galardo said. “We were supposed to have the MAX and the A220 so one doesn’t replace the other.”


READ MORE:
Air Canada, WestJet keeping Boeing 737 MAX off their flight schedules until March

Galardo said the Embraer E175s will be phased out in favour of the A220s, but that the airline has pushed back the E175 retirements so it can fill the gaps left by the MAX.

– With files from The Canadian Press

© 2020 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

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As sports betting addiction takes hold in Brazil, the government moves to crack down

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SAO PAULO (AP) — “King” doesn’t disclose his real name. Even clients of his Sao Paulo newsstand have to call him by his moniker. The Brazilian online sports gambling addict lowered his profile after a loan shark threatened to put bullets in his head if he didn’t pay up.

Broke and embarrassed, King sought treatment and support earlier this year.

“I was once addicted to slot machines, but then sports betting was so easy that I changed. I got carried away all the time,” he told The Associated Press.

King’s story is that of many vulnerable Brazilians in recent years. The country has become the third-biggest market in the world for sports betting, following the U.S. and the U.K., a report by data analysis company Comscore said last year. But unlike those countries, rampant advertising and sponsorship have been coupled with an unregulated market. The government is now — belatedly, some say — striving to get a handle on the epidemic.

On a recent evening, King’s Gamblers Anonymous meeting took place in an improvised classroom inside a church, with coffee and cookies to keep everyone awake, and supportive messages scrawled onto the blackboard. One that’s become ubiquitous in Brazil and beyond: “Only for today I will avoid the first bet.”

King and other attendees, all Christian, started a prayer and the meeting began.

King said his financial problems arose from his addiction to online sports betting, chiefly on soccer.

“I miss the adrenaline rush when I don’t bet,” he said before the gathering. “I have managed to stop for a couple of months, but I know that if I do it once again, even a small bet, it will all come back.”

Driven by the pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic was a key driver for Brazilians embracing sports betting. King said he transformed almost every sale during that time into a bet. His hook was the non-stop advertising on TV, radio, social media as well as sponsorship of local soccer teams’ jerseys. He asked for bank loans to pay his gambling debts and then, to cover those, went to the moneylender. His total debt now amounts to 85,000 reais ($15,000) — impossible to pay off with his monthly income of 8,000 reais.

Digging oneself out of debt in Brazil is especially daunting with its sky-high interest rates. Loans from Brazilian banks could add interest of almost 8% per month to the borrowed sum, and from loan sharks could be even more.

Four Gamblers Anonymous meetings attended by the AP in October featured discussions about difficulties paying down debts, forcing working-class members to postpone housing payments and cancel family vacations.

Some members of impoverished Brazilian families have used welfare money for betting instead of paying for groceries and housing, official data suggests. In August, beneficiaries of Brazil’s flagship program Bolsa Familia spent 3 billion reais ($530 million) on sports betting, according to a report from the central bank. That was more than 20% of the program’s total outlay in the month.

A host of gambling related problems

Sports betting was made legal in 2018 in a bill signed by former President Michel Temer. The subsequent turmoil has recently been setting off alarm bells, with addicts venting on social media and media reports of people losing huge sums.

On Oct. 1, the economy ministry prevented more than 2,000 betting companies from operating in Brazil for having failed to provide all the required documents. Soccer-loving President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said in an interview on Oct. 17 that he will shut down the entire market in Brazil if his administration’s new regulations — presented at the end of July— fail to work. And Brazil’s Senate on Oct. 25 opened an investigation into betting companies, focusing on crime and addiction.

“There’s tax evasion, money laundering of organized crime, the use of influencers to trick people into betting. These companies need to be audited,” Sen. Soraya Thronicke, who proposed the inquiry, told journalists in Brasilia.

Sérgio Peixoto, a ride-sharing app driver in Rio, is one of many lower-middle-income Brazilians who have reduced their spending due to sports betting debt. Peixoto’s debt currently amounts to 25,000 reais ($4,400). His monthly income is four times less than that.

“It stopped being a game, it wasn’t fun. I just wanted to get the money back, so I lost even more,” said Peixoto, 26. “I could have invested that money. It would surely have given me more benefits.

Pressure to bet

Pressure on people to gamble is everywhere. Current and former soccer players, including Vinicius Júnior, Ronaldo Nazário and Roberto Rivellino, are among the poster boys for local and foreign brands. All but one of the top-tier soccer clubs have betting companies among their main sponsors, with their name and logo emblazoned on their kits. There have been cases of kids and teenagers setting up accounts using their parents’ personal information and money, multiple local media outlets have reported.

Brazil’s economy ministry estimates that Brazil’s sports betting market had $21 billion in transactions last year, a 71% increase compared with the first year of the pandemic, 2020.

The ministry’s newly presented regulations include facial recognition systems for gamblers to bet, the identification of a single bank account for transactions involving sports betting, new protections against hackers and the government-authorized domain, bet.br, which will host all betting sites that are legal in Brazil. Once they are in place, come January, between 100 and 150 betting companies will continue to operate in the South American nation.

The changes in Brazil have prompted some companies to take preemptive action. A report by Yield Sec, a technical intelligence platform for online marketplaces, said several betting companies voluntarily restricted their operations in different places after the latest editions of the European Championships and Copa America in the hopes of presenting “the best possible license application face to the Brazilian authorities.”

Magnho José Santos de Sousa, the president of the Legal Gambling Institute, a betting think tank, said Brazil is currently “invaded by illegal websites that have licenses in Malta, Curação, Gibraltar and the United Kingdom.”

De Sousa expressed hope that the new regulations for advertising, responsible gambling and qualification of sports betting companies will transform the country’s deregulated arena into a more serious one that doesn’t exploit the vulnerable.

“The whole operation could turn from water into wine,” he said.

Gamblers Anonymous in high demand

Meantime, the demand for Gamblers Anonymous meetings in Sao Paulo has grown so much in recent years that the weekly gathering, in place since the 1990s, was no longer enough. Many groups have added a second day in the week to help new people recover, mostly sports bettors.

Earlier in October, a group on Sao Paulo’s northern edge admitted a man who was struggling with sports betting and card games. The 13 other people in the room stressed that he wasn’t alone.

“Welcome,” one long-time attendee said, in a greeting that has become a regular for the group. “Today, you are the most important person here.”

___

Dumphreys reported from Rio de Janeiro.



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Saskatchewan’s Jason Ackerman improves to 6-0 at mixed curling nationals

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SAINT CATHARINES, Ont. – Saskatchewan’s Jason Ackerman remained undefeated on Wednesday with a 7-4 win over Newfoundland and Labrador’s Trent Skanes at the Canadian mixed curling championship.

After going down 3-1 through four ends, Ackerman (6-0) outscored Skanes (3-3) 6-1 the rest of the way, including three points in the seventh end.

Alberta’s Kurt Alan Balderston also earned a win, defeating New Brunswick’s Charlie Sullivan 9-2 in another matchup in the final draw.

The win improved Balderston’s record to 4-2 and sits in third in Pool B.

The top four teams from each pool will play four more games against the survivors from the other pool. The remaining three teams from the pool will play three more seeding games to help set the rankings for next year’s event.

The championship final is scheduled for Saturday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



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Oilers fall 4-2 to Golden Knights in McDavid’s return from injury

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EDMONTON – Noah Hanifin had a pair of goals as the Vegas Golden Knights won their first road game of the season, coming from behind to shock the Edmonton Oilers 4-2 on Wednesday.

Jack Eichel had a goal and two assists and Mark Stone also scored for the Golden Knights (9-3-1), who have won two in a row and six of their last seven. The Knights entered the game 0-3-1 on the road this year.

Brett Kulak and Zach Hyman replied for the Oilers (6-7-1), who have lost two straight despite getting captain Connor McDavid back from injury earlier than expected for the game.

Adin Hill made 27 saves for Vegas, while Stuart Skinner managed 31 stops for Edmonton.

Takeaways

Golden Knights: With an assist on the Knights’ second goal, William Karlsson has recorded at least a point in all five games he has played this season (two goals, four assists).

Oilers: McDavid was a surprise starter for the Oilers, coming back just nine days after suffering an ankle injury in Columbus and initially being expected to miss two to three weeks. The star forward came into the contest with 11 points (three goals, eight assists) during a six-game point streak versus the Golden Knights, but was held pointless on the night.

Key moment

With just 48.4 seconds left to play, the Golden Knights won a race to the corner and Ivan Barbashev was able to send it out to a hard-charging Hanifin, who sent a shot glove-side that beat Skinner for his second goal of the third period and third of the season.

Key stat

It was Hyman’s third goal in the last four games after the veteran forward went scoreless in his first 10 games this season following a 54-goal campaign last year. Hyman now has five goals in his last six games against Vegas.

Up next

Golden Knights: Head to Seattle to face the Kraken on Friday.

Oilers: Travel to Vancouver on a quick one-game trip to clash with the Canucks on Saturday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



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