MONTREAL — For the month of February, Air Canada reported a system load factor of 78.4% on a consolidated basis with Jazz (from which Air Canada purchases regional capacity), versus 79.6% in February 2009, a decrease of 1.2 percentage points.

System traffic increased 5.5% on a capacity increase of 7.1% system wide.

According to Calin Rovinescu, president and CEO, “as we expected and planned for, domestic load factor for the month reflects the 7.1% increase in capacity as well as the impact of uni-directional traffic generated in the latter part of February by the opening of the Olympic Games in Vancouver, our second largest hub after Toronto in terms of traffic. Transpacific traffic has rebounded from the previous year and our reinstated nonstop Toronto-Tokyo service is performing well.

“I am incredibly proud of everyone on our team, including those who volunteered to work on humanitarian flights for relief efforts in Haiti, and others who rose to the challenge to bring the world to Vancouver for the 2010 Winter Games as Official Airline.”