{"id":243422,"date":"2026-03-30T14:10:23","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T14:10:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/243422\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T14:10:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T14:10:23","slug":"air-canada-ceo-will-retire-after-english-only-crash-message-criticized","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/243422\/","title":{"rendered":"Air Canada CEO will retire after English-only crash message criticized"},"content":{"rendered":"

By ROB GILLIES<\/p>\n

TORONTO (AP) \u2014 Air Canada announced Monday its CEO will retire later this year, after Michael Rousseau <\/a> was criticized for his English-only message of condolence following this month\u2019s deadly crash<\/a> in New York.<\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s largest airline, based in French-speaking Quebec, said Rousseau told the board he will retire by the end of the third quarter.<\/p>\n

Canada is an officially bilingual nation, and Prime Minister Mark Carney had said the English-only message showed a lack of compassion and judgment. Quebec\u2019s premier and others called on the airline executive to resign.<\/p>\n

Antoine Forest, one of the two pilots killed<\/a> in the crash at LaGuardia Airport, was a French-speaking Quebecer. Forest and Mackenzie Gunther died when the Air Canada Jazz flight from Montreal collided with a fire truck on the runway shortly after landing.<\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s largest airline is headquartered in Montreal. Rousseau previously had been criticized for not speaking French. He delivered his condolence video message in English, with French subtitles. The Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages has received hundreds of complaints about it.<\/p>\n

Quebec Premier Fran\u00e7ois Legault noted that when Rousseau was appointed president of the airline in February 2021, he promised to learn French.<\/p>\n

Quebec\u2019s identity has been contentious since the 1760s, when the British completed their takeover of what was then called New France. Quebec is about 80% French-speaking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By ROB GILLIES TORONTO (AP) \u2014 Air Canada announced Monday its CEO will retire later this year, after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":243423,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[109153,109154,109156,109155,74,76,75],"class_list":{"0":"post-243422","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-air-canada","9":"tag-air-canada-ceo","10":"tag-laguardia-crash","11":"tag-michael-rousseau","12":"tag-san-diego","13":"tag-san-diego-headlines","14":"tag-san-diego-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}