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Monday, December 30, 2019 Posted by Travelweek Group
TORONTO — It was a whirlwind 12 months for airline acquisition news. And it all started with one particularly surprising week in May.
On May 13 WestJet announced that it had entered into a definitive agreement for its acquisition by Onex Corporation for an all-cash deal worth $5 billion.
On May 16, three days later, Air Canada and Transat said they were in negotiations, with the upshot that Air Canada was looking to buy Transat for some $520 million (ultimately boosted to $720 million).
The Air Canada-Transat announcement certainly put an end to any conjecture that Onex might be looking to acquire Transat too, adding Transat’s strengths in the east to WestJet’s in the west.
Canada’s airline industry, relatively calm for many years, was suddenly headline news again as the financial pundits weighed in on both deals.
Amid all that, over the course of 2019 airlines became public enemy number one for climate change concerns.