Personal Travel Passes and Programs

In addition to the basic travel privileges outlined in the Employee Travel Policy (ETP), Air Canada (AC) offers its employees a variety of travel passes and programs intended to encourage flexibility, recognize service, and reward performance. Different passes have different service charges, boarding priorities, upgrade options and more, but they all have one thing in common – they enhance your ability to travel as a member of the Air Canada family.

Using Travel Privileges and Passes

Pass allotments: Visit My Profile section to view the allotment awarded to you and those included in your travel profile. This is the most accurate and reliable way of keeping track of your allotment.

Travel partners: Employees/retirees and/or their spouse are permitted to travel with a maximum of four (4) partners in total on any flight. To travel with more than 4 partners, an employee/retiree and their spouse must take separate flights and accompany no more than 4 partners on each flight.

Flight bookings/Registrations: You must make all registrations/bookings through the ETS*, which you can access in one of these ways:

• Via the AC portal at acaeronet.aircanada.ca by clicking on the My Travel tab
• If there is no portal access, via https://travel.aircanada.com

* Not applicable to the Personal Positive-Space ID50 pass. ↵

Altea: You may not, under any circumstances, create or change your reservation in Altea. However, an airport agent may do so for you during irregular operations or an involuntary reroute.

Checking in for a flight: You can check in for a flight using one of the following methods:

Boarding the flight: Once you have your boarding pass, you may go through security and head to your departure gate.

Please arrive at the gate at least 20 minutes before departure for domestic flights and at least 30 minutes before departure for international flights.  Please wait for your name to be called by the gate agent.

Here’s how it works:

• The computer automatically sorts your position on the standby list according to boarding priority and company service date.
• If you get on the flight, the agent will call you and give you a new boarding pass with your assigned row and seat number. Please board the flight as quickly as possible when your row is called.
• If you do not get on the flight, the agent will say the flight is full. Let the agent know if you’d like to standby for another flight. You will then be transferred to the next available flight. If there is no other flight to your destination that day, you may try an alternate permitted routing on a flight operated by Air Canada or try again the following day.   You will need to register yourself for this via the Employee Travel Site.  
• You are responsible for all expenses related to meals, hotels or transportation even if the flight is cancelled due to weather, mechanical problems, heavy customer or cargo loads, or schedule changes.

Boarding priorities: Space-available passes generally have a boarding priority beginning with the letters A/B/C/D and a format that looks like:

• C2/Y10
• C3/Y10
• C4/Y10
• C5/Y10
• C6/Y10, etc.

The letter and number to the left (i.e.: C2) determine the order the standby passenger will be boarded on the flight after all the revenue and positive-space staff travelers have been boarded. This is first determined alphabetically and then numerically.

For example, boarding priorities would be called in the following order:

• A1
• A2
• A3
• B1
• B2
• B3
• C2
• C3
• C4

Additional details:

• If more than one standby passenger is travelling with the same boarding priority, then they will be boarded in order of seniority from most senior to least.
• If more than one standby passenger is travelling with the same boarding priority and the same seniority, then they will be boarded in order of check-in time from earliest to latest.
• Parents who travel accompanied by the employee or spouse, travel with the same boarding priority as the employee/spouse.

Cabin assignment: The letter-number combination to the right (i.e.: Y10*) of the boarding priority, indicate the cabin in which you’re eligible to be seated. Here’s how it works:

• Y10 means you’ll be seated in the economy cabin. However, if there’s no room in economy, you may be seated in the business class cabin if space allows.
• J10 means you’ll be seated in the business class cabin. However, if there’s no room in business class, you may be seated in economy if space allows.

* Please note that the number 10 serves an administrative purpose and has no relevance to your boarding priority or cabin assignment. ↵

Service charges: Basic personal travel privileges are subject to service charges, as well as applicable taxes and airport fees. However, some employees have the chance to use passes that are free of service charges at least three times per year. Consult the chart below for more details.

Billing: Trips may or may not happen as planned, which is why you are only charged for trips taken (not for booked PNRs). As you board a flight (planned or unplanned), a “record” of travel is automatically generated and billing will be for the flights actually flown even if they are not those you intended for travel.

Regardless of the boarding priority you booked or used, billing will occur upon completion of one of the following, whichever comes first:

• You have returned to your point of origin, or;
• 30 days have elapsed since the travel began, or;
• You have completed eight sectors of travel

At this point, the automated billing system will reconcile the completed trip by:

• Removing any limited allotment passes you used from your travel profile
• Charging all applicable fees and taxes to the credit card on file

Passes At-A-Glance

• Valid for travel on AC, AC Express, and AC Rouge
• Not valid for travel on AC Vacations, Star Alliance, or other airlines
• Eligibility varies per pass
• Subject to rules and limitations of the ETP, unless otherwise indicated

These are travel products that exist and may differ or not be applicable to all employees, based on their status and/or level.

Please refer to your profile for the list of your travel entitlements.

* For employees who retired in 2020 or 2021 theses passes will expire 31 Dec 2023. ↵

This policy is subject to change without notice.
Last update: Jan 31, 2025