Air Canada has resumed discussions with ValuJet Airlines on maintaining the low-cost carrier's fleet of McDonnell Douglas DC-9s. Talks lapsed when Atlanta, Georgia-based ValuJet was grounded in June following the May crash of a DC-9 in Florida, but resumed after the airline restarted operations in September.
The work would be performed in Montreal, where Air Canada maintains its own 35 remaining DC-9s. The Canadian airline plans to retire most of its DC-9s over the next few months, but now says that it intends to keep 15 aircraft for use on growing cross-border services to the USA. The decision to keep these DC-9s will be reviewed in the second quarter of 1997.
ValuJet resumed operations with 15 DC-9s and plans to increase its fleet to 30 by the end of the first quarter of 1997.
Air Canada says that it has had "further preliminary discussions" on maintenance with ValuJet, and is "interested in that contract".
Source: Flight International
