Air Canada (AC, Montréal Trudeau) has announced a series of measures mitigating the effects of grounding of the B737-8 fleet, including wet-leases of aircraft, fleet adjustments, route cuts, and commercial agreements with Star Alliance partners.

In terms of its own fleet plans, Air Canada decided to extend the dry-leases of three A320-200 and three E190s which initially were due to leave the fleet. The carrier will also accelerate the addition of six ex-WOW air (Reykjavik Keflavik) A321-200s. The first four units are now due to join Air Canada rouge fleet in May 2019, a month earlier than initially planned. The other two Airbus narrowbodies will deliver to Air Canada later.

The Canadian flag carrier will also wet-lease two A330-200s from Qatar Airways (QR, Doha Hamad International). The aircraft will be used on daily flights from Montréal Trudeau to Barcelona El Prat and Paris CDG starting on June 15. Air Canada will also wet-lease a single B767-200(ER) from Omni Air International (OY, Tulsa International) from June 2 onwards. The aircraft will be deployed from Vancouver International to Honolulu and Kahului.

Air Canada will also suspend its own daily flights from Montreal to Munich. Instead, joint venture partner Lufthansa (LH, Frankfurt International) will increase the frequency of its flights on the route from daily to 2x daily.

The carrier has also delayed the launch of seasonal routes from Toronto Pearson to Shannon and Abbotsford, as well as from Calgary to London, ON. These flights were originally due to launch in summer 2019 but will only commence in 2020.

Air Canada also temporarily suspended services from Halifax and St. John's to London Heathrow tentatively through the end of July 2019.

Smaller adjustments include the delayed launch of services from Montreal to Bordeaux Mérignac and from Vancouver to Boston, as well as replacement of some mainline aircraft by Air Canada rouge equipment on select routes.

Air Canada operated twenty-four B737 MAX 8s at the time of the grounding of the type. It was due to take a further twelve units by July 2019.