Canada’s Pivot Airlines delays scheduled ops over Covid

Pivot Airlines (ZX, Toronto Pearson) has delayed the launch of its Ottawa Int’l and Montréal Trudeau scheduled services due to an ongoing surge in Omicron cases and recently re-introduced COVID-19 linked travel restriction in Canada.

“Although we have no indication from the Federal Government when the global travel advisory may be lifted or, as importantly, when Canadian corporations will return to the office and lift internal travel restrictions, we will continue to monitor our collaborating peer airlines’ domestic and transborder booking landscape to determine a viable launch date that we hope correlates with a robust summer schedule,” the airline announced in a statement.

Meanwhile, passengers who had booked a ticket would receive a full refund, the airline said.

Pivot Airlines planned to begin scheduled services from Kitchener to Ottawa International on February 19 and to Montréal Trudeau on March 21, 2022.

The charter specialist had started up in June 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, providing essential air services for health, resource, and supply chain sector workers across Canada and to South America. The company also provides group charter flights from Toronto Pearson and Kitchener.

According to the ch-aviation fleets advanced module, it has one CRJ100ER, C-FWRR (msn 7107), on lease from Avmax Aircraft Leasing. The aircraft was on an ACMI contract to interCaribbean Airways (JY, Providenciales) until January 13, but has since returned to Canada to fly between Montréal Trudeau and Toronto Pearson, according to FlightRadar24 ADS-B data. The airline has three more of the type (msn 7071, 7095, and 7112) due from Avmax.

Pivot was also granted a foreign air carrier permit by the US government in June last year.