was a discount
Canadian ,
Charter airline headquartered in
Toronto, Ontario offering domestic and international flights. It was the largest charter airline in the world at the time of its operation, with over 90 destinations worldwide, although it changed to scheduled service in 2000 after the
Canadian Airlines and
Air Canada merge. Canada 3000 competed with Air Canada,
WestJet , and fellow charter airline
Air Transat . In November of 2001, the airline went out of business after a sharp decline in revenues following the
September 11th 2001 Terrorist Attacks in the United States. There have been several attempts to restart the airline since then.
Created in 1988 by British airline
Air 2000 , initially for charter service, it underwent a corporate reorganization and change in ownership during the 1990s when it merged with charter carrier
Royal Aviation or of
Montreal, Quebec . It also took over
CanJet Airlines (since then CanJet has resurfaced). Following the merger of
Canadian Airlines International with Air Canada, Canada 3000 positioned itself as a scheduled discount carrier for the domestic market, in addition to its ongoing charter service, and underwent a rapid expansion, garnering up to 30% of Canadian passenger traffic at its peak, flying to the
United States ,
Europe , and
Australia . Shortly (one month) before its demise, Canada 3000 became the first airline to operate non-stop service from North America to
India .
This included introducing a new "Club C3" Class in some aircraft.
The company also acquired the Royal Airlines' cargo operation, renaming it . The Cargo operation was sold off and became
Cargojet Airways that is still in operation.
On November 8th 2001 the company suddenly collapsed with no warning for travellers or employees. The company filed for bankruptcy, citing a downturn in air travel during the weeks following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States.
The fleet was left grounded at various airports around the world, as the airline couldn't pay the airport fees.
In 2002, the former owner of Royal Airlines and director with Canada 3000
Michel Leblanc went on to form another scheduled discount airline,
Jetsgo , which lasted almost three years before it too collapsed and filed for backruptcy protection on
March 11 ,
2005 .
- In 2005 a group of investors had planned to launch a new Canada 3000, with two Boeing 757-200 aircraft (ref: Flight International, April 2005).
