Air Canada expansion overseas planned

Air Canada, which narrowly avoided having to file for bankruptcy protection last year has nearly C$1 billion (US$971 million) in debt coming due over the next two years. Now the airline plans to push further into high-margin international markets to drive growth. “We’d like to de-leverage our balance sheet and… the most inexpensive way of doing that is producing free cash flow to pay down debt,” says Air Canada chief financial officer Michael Rousseau. “We have almost C$1 billion of debt coming due the next two years. Certainly we would like to pay some, if not all, of that back.”