Air Canada CEO Out After Admitting In PR Video That He Can’t Speak French
Michael Rousseau is on his way out as head of Air Canada, after a crisis response that somehow made a bad situation worse – and then kept digging. The backdrop: a fatal March 22 crash at LaGuardia Airport involving a flight from Montreal to New York City. Two pilots were killed. Rousseau responded with a video offering his “deepest sorrow for everyone affected,” but delivered almost all of it in English, tossing in a token “bonjour” and “merci” like that would smooth things over, according to Bloomberg. It did not. In Quebec—where language politics are less “preference” and more “contact sport”—the backlash was immediate. The National Assembly of Quebec unanimously called for him to go, and Prime Minister Mark Carney slammed the video as a “lack of judgment and lack of compassion.” Notably, one of the deceased pilots was from Quebec, which made the whole thing land even worse. Rousseau tried damage control, noting he’d taken hundreds of hours of French lessons and saying his shortcomings had “diverted attention from the profound grief.” Unfortunately, after …
