This video will help you understand the impact of retiring on your vacation entitlement and your options when bidding for vacation.

Click the link below to view:

“Vacation Bidding and Retirement Video“

In Solidarity,

Your Component Pension Committee

**This applies to Mainline Only**

As of May 1, 2003, Air Canada changed the vacation system to a current year vacation. All Air Canada employees now earn and take their vacation in the same vacation year, May 1 to April 30. Retirements always commence on the first day of a calendar month.

If you retire during the upcoming Vacation Year then your vacation annual entitlement will be prorated. All proration due to absences will occur within the vacation year of the absence. Crew Planning has a proration chart that they use to determine the actual number of vacation days you are entitled to.

If you want to be paid out for the vacation you earn and are entitled to, you should bid all your vacation after your retirement date. If you want to take some vacation during the vacation year that you are retiring in, prior to your retirement date and do not want to have to repay the Company for any excess vacation days taken, then prior to your retirement date you need to bid only the number of days you are entitled to or less.

You can do an approximate calculation of the number of vacation days you will be entitled to, that you have earned prior to your planned retirement date and you can determine the number of Statutory holidays you should be entitled to as well. If you add these two together then you will have an idea of what your actual total entitlement is and you can bid so that you do not exceed your entitlement. If you wish to confirm what your actual vacation entitlement is you can contact Crew Planning and they will advise you.

YUL and YYZ: crewplng.east@aircanada.ca
YYC and YVR: crewplng.west@aircanada.ca

A quick approximate proration calculation can be done as follows: divide your normal total vacation annual entitlement by 12 (the total number of months in a vacation year) to get the value for a single month. You then multiply this times the number of months from May 1 to your retirement date. This gives you an approximation of the number of vacation days you will be entitled to. Note: If you anticipate being on a Reduced Block (RBP) you only earn 60% of your vacation entitlement for each month on a RBP so this will reduce your entitlement for those months accordingly. If you anticipate being on a reduced block and do not want to overbid vacation days prior to your retirement, you should definitely check your entitlement with Crew Planning.

Example 1: September 1 Retirement
Normal Vacation Annual Entitlement 35 days divided by 12 months = 2.91 days, approximately 3 days per month. Retiring September 1 is 4 months from May 1 (May/June/July/August).
4 X 2.91 = 11.64 vacation days, which rounded up is 12 days.
The Statutory holidays you are entitled to, are the ones occurring during the Vacation year that occur in months you are on the payroll. So in this case that would be 2, Victoria Day in May and Canada Day in July. In this example your total approximate Annual and Statutory Entitlement would be 14 days (12 + 2).

Example 2: February 1 Retirement
Normal Vacation Annual Entitlement 35 days divided by 12 months = 2.91days, approximately 3 days per month. Retiring February 1 is 9 months from May 1 (May 1 to January 31)
9 X 2.91 = 26.19 vacation days, which rounded down is 26 days. In this case you would be entitled to 8 statutory holidays, those occurring between May 1 and January 31.

In this example your total approximate Annual and Statutory Entitlement would be 34 days (26 + 8).

Vacation entitlements are based on your service date or adjusted service date with Air Canada. For bidding purposes, you will be allotted full annual and statutory vacation based on the assumption that you will be an active employee for the upcoming vacation year. For those, with currently approved absences, you will be awarded a reduced entitlement based on those absences.

A discrepancy report is run monthly, monitoring all absences and reductions are made. If you have submitted to retire and Crew Planning is aware of this and knows that you have been awarded more days than you are entitled to prior to your retirement date they will reduce your vacation prior to the block awards. If the advice of your retirement is received by them following the block awards in a vacation month, they will reduce the vacation with an “unavailable no fault”, post awards. It is all a matter of timing.

If Crew Planning does not know about your retirement and is unable to adjust (reduce your award) and you end up taking more vacation than you are entitled to before you retire, then you will have to repay this amount when you retire. If there is an over payment of vacation it will be recovered by the Company on your final pay.

Hopefully this is useful for those who are considering retirement in the upcoming vacation year (May 1 to April 30) and allows you to plan your vacation bidding accordingly.

In Solidarity,

Your Component Pension Committee

*** This bulletin is directed to those hired after November 7, 2011 ***

Employees hired after November 7, 2011 at both Air Canada Mainline and Air Canada Rouge are enrolled in a Hybrid Pension Plan. The Hybrid Plan is a combination plan, which contains a Defined Benefit (DB) portion and a Defined Contribution (DC) portion.

For the DB portion you contribute 2.0%, 2.5% or 3.0%, depending on your years of continuous service. The Company contributes the amounts necessary to ensure that the funding of the plan meets the requirements of the Pension Benefits Standards Act and its regulations at all times. You earn DB retirement benefits based on a pre-determined formula using your allowable service and compensation. There are no investment decisions to make on this portion as the employer is responsible for any investment risk.

The DC portion is based on a combination of employee and employer contributions. This is where a decision is necessary on your part. Depending on your years of service, you get to set your level of pension contribution between 1.5% to 3% and the employer matches this between 100% to 175%, also depended on years of service.  In order to maximize your DC portion, you should be contributing the maximum you can since the employer matches your contributions and if you’re contributing less, you’re losing out on money.

Let’s take a member with 5 years of service earning $40,000 per year. This employee has the option of contributing 1.5%, 2%, or 2.5%. The employer at this stage matches contributions at 175%. The below table outlines the DC Investment at each contribution level.

Contribution Level	1.5%	2.0%	2.5%
Employee Contribution	$600	$800	$1,000
Employer Contribution	$1,050	$1,400	$1,750
Total DC Investment	$1,650	$2,200	$2,750

As outlined in the above scenario, the member could be losing up to $700 per year in employer contributions if they are not maxing out their contribution. In order to update or check your DC contribution level, login to your Manulife account, under the “My Account” heading select “View/Change My Payroll Deduction Amount”.

In Solidarity,

Your Component Pension Committee