2023 Consolidated Financial Statements and Notes
AIR CANADA
2023 Consolidated Financial Statements and Notes
The funding of employee benefits as compared to the expense recorded in the consolidated statement of operations
is summarized in the table below.
(Canadian dollars in millions)
2023
2022
Net defined pension and other future employee benefits expense recorded in the
consolidated statement of operations
Wages, salaries and benefits
$
191
$
272
Net interest relating to employee benefit liabilities
(25)
(24)
166
248
Employee benefit funding by Air Canada
Pension benefits
Other employee benefits
Employee benefit funding less than expense
Composition of Defined Benefit Pension Plan Assets
Domestic Registered Plans
$
61
$
46
$
107
$
120
782
70
50
69
$
59
$
128
The composition of the Domestic Registered Plan assets and the target allocation are the following:
Fixed income investments
Canadian equities
Foreign equities
Alternative investments
2023
2022
Target
Allocation
62%
64%
60%
2%
2%
2%
3%
3%
3%
33%
31%
35%
100%
100%
100%
For the Domestic Registered Plan assets, approximately 67% of assets as of December 31, 2023 have a quoted market
price in an active market. Assets that do not have a quoted market price in an active market are mainly investments in
privately held entities. The asset composition in the table represents the allocation of plan assets to each asset type.
Included in plan assets, for determining the net benefit obligation for accounting purposes, are 17,646,765 (2022 -
17,646,765) shares of Air Canada which were issued to a trust in 2009 in connection with pension funding agreements
reached with all of the Corporation's Canadian-based unions. The trust arrangement provides that proceeds of any
sale of the trust shares will be retained and applied to reduce future pension solvency deficits, if any should materialize.
With the Corporation's Domestic Registered Plans now in a surplus position on a solvency basis, the accounting rules
prevent the recognition of the value of the shares held in trust as part of the pension assets. The shares held in trust
have a fair value of $330 million at December 31, 2023 (2022 - $342 million), although after giving effect to the asset
ceiling, the recognized accounting value of the trust asset is nil.
In November 2021, Air Canada announced that its Canadian unions and the Air Canada Pionairs agreed in principle to
permit certain other uses of the proceeds of the shares discussed above. If all conditions are met, shares in the trust
will be gradually sold over a period of up to 15 years with the net proceeds from the sales used to make lump sum
payments to Canadian pensioners and to fund voluntary separation packages for senior unionized employees and non-
executive employees. There are several conditions to the completion of the agreement and effecting such sales and
payments. These include the conclusion of definitive documentation, and the receipt of all required regulatory and other
approvals which remain outstanding. While the satisfaction of the conditions is being pursued, there can be no
assurance that these or any other conditions will be satisfied. The financial statements do not reflect any accounting
consequences related to this, as these would only be determined upon the conditions and required approvals being
met.
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