Pension Committee

Your pension committee advocates, educates and communicates on pension matters important to you.

Your pension plan is one of the most valuable assets you will acquire during your working career. For most members the Company pension will form the most significant portion of their retirement income. It is important that we work to protect, preserve and enhance this asset.

Our pension plans are governed by Federal rules and regulation. OSFI (Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions) is the federal agency that overseas federally regulated pensions. Our pension plans are subject to the rules and regulations established through OSFI and also by certain federal taxation laws.

There are separate workplace pension plans for CUPE members originally hired at Air Canada Mainline and those originally hired at Air Canada Rouge. CUPE members who transitioned to AC Mainline through the merger with Canadian Airlines International Ltd (CAIL) are members of the AC Mainline Plan (see note below). CUPE members who transfer between AC Mainline and AC Rouge and vice versa continue to participate in their original pension plan. Members who transfer will continue to accumulate qualifying service and allowable service in their original pension plan as if they were still working there.

Note: CAIL CUPE members who were age 55 or over and who were not in the CAIL pension plan on October 1, 2002, were not required to join the pension plan, following the merger with Air Canada. For all other members who were not members of the CAIL pension plan, membership became mandatory as of January 1, 2007.

The pension benefit provided for members hired at AC Mainline on or after November 7, 2011and the pension benefit for members originally hired at AC Rouge are the same. The CUPE hybrid pension plan provisions apply to these members. The hybrid plans have a mix of defined benefit (DB) and defined contribution (DC) components. Under the DB component, you accumulate a pension throughout your career at Air Canada Mainline and Rouge that is calculated based on a predetermined formula. Under the DC component, yours’ and Air Canada’s contributions, accumulate with investment returns – the account balance when you retire provides you with retirement income, in addition to what you receive from the DB component of your pension.

All other members of the AC Mainline Pension Plan (ie; those hired before Nov 7, 2011) participate and are covered by a defined benefit (DB) pension. A defined benefit plan (DB Plan) means that the pension you accumulate throughout your career at Air Canada is calculated based on a predetermined formula.

Members can find a summary of the details of their pension plan provisions, in the “Members’ Portal” on this CUPE website or on the AC aeronet under the “HR Connex” tab. On the AC aeronet once you sign in: > click on the HR Connex tab > under “Retirement” > click on “HR Connex Pension.” Under the “Knowledge Centre” tab (tile) you will find a very readable summary of your pension plan provisions. This site also has other very useful and informative information about your pension. For AC Mainline Plan members there is also a pension calculator where you can “Project Your Retirement Income”. If you want to find your Average Annual Compensation (best 3 years) and the time period it is based on, click on “Calculation Details” after you have done a pension projection. The pension projection tool is not yet available for Rouge Plan members but it is a feature that will be added in the future.

You can reach out to your pension committee representatives on any pension related matters. We encourage you to initially contact HR Connex Pensions, now the AC Employee Care Team 1-833-847-EMPL (3675) with any specific questions regarding your pension as they have access to your file and should be able to address most issues.