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As the grounding of the Boeing 737 Max airplane nears the eight-month mark, Air Canada says the busy summer travel season just past was a test of its abilities to replace much of the lost capacity.

Air Canada’s 24 737 Max planes, which represent 10 per cent of its capacity, are part of the global fleet that was grounded in March by regulators after two crashes in five months killed 346 people.

Michael Rousseau, Air Canada’s deputy chief executive officer, said on Thursday the third quarter “is a very big quarter for us. We utilize all our planes so there is not as much opportunity to mitigate.”

Air Canada and WestJet Airlines Ltd. have dropped the 737 Max model from their schedules until early January and have replaced some of the lost capacity by leasing planes, moving up the arrival date of additional planes or using aircraft already in their fleets. Still, many routes and flights remain cancelled and hundreds of Air Canada Max pilots are idle.

Mr. Rousseau reaffirmed the company’s guidance of 5-per-cent growth in the third quarter’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.

Preliminary investigations link the 737 Max crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia to erroneous readings from the angle of attack indicators and the automated control system, which is designed to prevent a stall. In both crashes, the pilots apparently fought – and lost – battles to prevent steep nosedives.

Boeing Co. is working on changes to the plane’s software and is expected to submit final versions for certification to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration this month. Other regulators, including Transport Canada, are also studying the changes and working with the company and the FAA before lifting the flight bans.

Dennis Muilenburg, Boeing’s chairman and CEO, said on Wednesday the company expects regulators will approve the plane’s software updates and training materials in the fourth quarter. But he added there is a possibility the world’s aviation authorities won’t agree on the suitability of all the changes, and the plane’s return could occur at different times in different countries.

Air Canada’s Mr. Rousseau said he hopes regulators act in unison to lift the flight bans, but “that may not be the situation at this point in time.”

“We hope it does come back into service this year,” he said. “It is an important part of our fleet. The plane was performing very well before it was grounded and it was an important element to replace our aging [Airbus] A320s. So it’s obviously very important to us.”

Mr. Rousseau said even if the ban was lifted in 2019, it could take a year for Air Canada’s entire Max fleet to return to service, given the number of pilots that need to be hired. Air Canada has 400 idle pilots waiting to fly the 24 Max planes parked at hangars across Canada.

But the company needs to hire and train pilots to fly the 26 Max planes it expects to take delivery of by next year. Twelve of these planes are being stored by Boeing, and another 14 are slated to be delivered next year, Mr. Rousseau said.

Air Canada’s $720-million takeover of Montreal airline and vacation company Transat A.T. Inc. is believed to be partly driven by a desire to secure access to Air Transat’s desirable fleet of new Airbus A321 Neos, a new fuel-efficient model that competes with the Max.

Transat has two A321s and is adding another three or four soon as it moves to an all-Airbus fleet. The company has no 737 Max planes.

Annick Guérard, chief operating officer of Transat, said the Max groundings at its competitors have not led to any decrease in overall industry seat capacity for the winter. The number of available seats is up by 5 per cent, although prices competition remains “aggressive,” she said on a conference call with analysts to discuss the Montreal-based company’s financial results.

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