Air Canada CEO Michael Rousseau Will Retire by Q3 2026 After a Condolence Video Delivered Almost Entirely in English Following a Fatal Crash Sparked a National Controversy in Canada
Air Canada CEO Michael Rousseau is stepping down after a firestorm over his failure to deliver a condolence message in French following a deadly plane crash, reigniting one of Canada’s most sensitive political flashpoints: the status of the French language.
Rousseau, 68, will leave the Montreal-based airline by the end of the third quarter of 2026, the company confirmed on March 30. The announcement came one week after a fatal collision between an Air Canada Express regional jet and a fire truck on the runway at New York’s LaGuardia Airport on March 23, which killed two pilots.
The Video That Started It All
In the aftermath of the crash, Rousseau posted a four-minute condolence video online. He spoke almost entirely in English. The only French words he used were bonjour at the start and merci at the end.
The backlash was immediate and intense. One of the two pilots killed, Antoine Forest, was a French-speaking Quebecer from Montreal. His colleague Mackenzie Gunther also died in the collision. Several passengers were injured when the aircraft collided with the fire truck at around 130 miles per hour.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said he was very disappointed, stating that Canada is a bilingual country and that companies like Air Canada have a special responsibility to communicate in both official languages. Industry Minister Melanie Joly called the message a show of lack of empathy, while Quebec’s National Assembly passed a non-binding motion calling for Rousseau to resign.
A Pattern of French Language Failures
This was not Rousseau’s first run-in over the language issue. In 2021, he gave a speech to Montreal’s chamber of commerce almost entirely in English and told reporters afterward that he did not need to learn French to get by in Montreal. The resulting uproar forced an apology and a pledge to improve. The airline said he has since taken around 350 hours of French language lessons and spent another 250 hours in practice scenarios. It was not enough.
As a former federal Crown corporation, Air Canada is legally bound by Canada’s Official Languages Act to provide services in both English and French. The Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages received over 2,300 complaints about the condolence video.
Air Canada said its board has been working on succession planning for two years and began an external search for CEO candidates in January 2026. The criteria for the next CEO will include, explicitly, the ability to communicate in French.
Ironically, the retirement announcement came the same day Air Canada disclosed that Rousseau received a $2.8 million bonus for 2025, a 43 percent jump from the previous year, bringing his total compensation to $13.1 million.
For many in Quebec, the resignation was long overdue. For Air Canada’s board, the search is now on for a leader who can run one of the world’s major carriers without alienating half the country.
