Air Transat, Flair join Aimia’s roster

Partnership agreements between Aimia Inc. and two more Canadian airlines have taken flight, slated to take effect after the Montreal-based company ’s current agreement with Air Canada ends in July 2020.

One of Aimia’s new partners is Air Transat, a long-established airline owned by Montrealbased travel and leisure company Transat AT. Aimia’s other new partner is Flair Airlines, which began operating no-frills scheduled services to several cities last year from Edmonton International Airport.

They join Toronto-based Porter Airlines as recent partners in the Aeroplan points system, which Air Canada has said it will replace with its own loyalty points program when the Aimia contract expires.

Aimia’s three new preferred partner fleets add up to a fraction of Air Canada’s, but Aimia has also been in discussions with the Oneworld airline alliance, whose members include British Airways, American Airlines and Cathay Pacific.

Air Canada led a consortium of bidders, which includes the key Aeroplan credit card partners Toronto-Dominion Bank, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and Visa Canada, to buy the loyalty program for as much as $325 million plus $2 billion of points liabilities, which Aimia rejected last week.

Aimia said it would consider an offer of at least $450 million from the Air Canada group.

On Monday, Aimia’s largest shareholder bristled at the $325-million bid, which was originally $250 million. Christopher Mittleman, chief investment officer of New York-based Mittleman Brothers LLC, called the offer “coercive” and “blatantly inadequate” in an open letter to Aimia’s board.

He recommended that Aimia, in which Mittleman Brothers has a 17.6-per-cent stake, accept no less than $1 billion.

Aimia CEO Jeremy Rabe said his plan aims to open up destination options for Aeroplan customers after July 2020.

“This is an exciting step toward our goal of providing ... great value when both earning and redeeming miles on travel bookings to popular ... destinations,” Rabe said in a release Tuesday.

For smaller airlines, a preferred partnership arrangement offers the promise of access to Aeroplan’s more than five million members.