Air Canada Tango

Tango Logo

Air Canada Tango was a discount airline launched by Air Canada in 2001 to offer no-frills service on some of Air Canada's routes and to reduce operating costs at the struggling Air Canada. Based in Toronto, Tango flew on the major longer-distance Canadian routes between cities such as Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Calgary and Vancouver. It also flew to some holiday destinations in the USA such as Fort Lauderdale and Tampa. The service offered lower fares but with few in-flight services.

The name is short for "Tan and Go", which is in reference to the southern winter destinations they hoped to serve. In early 2001 airlines like Canada 3000 and Air Transat found these markets very lucrative.

In 2002, Air Canada launched another discount airline called Zip. Unlike Tango, however, Zip operated as a totally separate airline with its own staff and management.

Air Canada Tango aircraft were configured in a full economy layout rather than with a business class cabin as on regular Air Canada aircraft. Tango also had a rather distinctive purple colour scheme.

Tango and Zip were both dissolved in 2004 partially due to issues with fuel surcharges on sub-economical flights. At many points of operation, Tango was requiring customers to pay more than double their fare rate in these additional fuel surcharges. Criticism was mounted by consumer complaints groups, including the BBB because the charges were not made known to customers until the time of boarding. Another reason for the elimination of the separate Tango and Zip brands was that through the bankruptcy process, Air Canada was able to reduce its mainline labor costs to levels similar to those at Tango and Zip.

Air Canada still advertises "Tango" as a type of fare on its regular Air Canada services.

Fleet

See also

• Air Canada
• Zip
• Air Canada Jazz

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