Air Transat Double Winner at Mercuriades Awards

Air Transat has won two Mercure awards – for Large Business of the Year and for Sustainable Development – at the Mercuriades awards gala in recognition of its program for green dismantling of end-of-life aircraft.

The project, completed in 2013, saw two Airbus A310s eco-responsibly and sustainably dismantled, with 87% of the aircrafts’ components reclaimed.

“We are honoured to receive these two awards,” says Jean-François Lemay, general manager of Air Transat. “Air Transat has once again shown itself to be a leader in sustainable development with this innovative project. It is perfectly in line with our environmental management strategy, which is applied across all business units of the Transat group and guides us toward our shared objective of becoming a model for corporate responsibility in the international travel industry.”

The Mercuriades is a major business competition held since 1981 and organized by the Fédération des chambres de commerce du Québec, the province’s largest business network. It rewards the visionary spirit, daring and savoir-faire of companies that contribute to development in Quebec and its regions.

The dismantling of the two Air Transat planes was conducted in collaboration with Aerocycle, a company specialized in eco-responsible aircraft dismantling and recycling, in compliance with an international standard established by the Aircraft Fleet Recycling Association (AFRA) and using an environmental management system introduced by Aéroports de Montréal (ADM, the Montreal airports authority), with co-ordination provided by sustainable-development consulting firm Eko-Conseil.

Pictured (l-r) are Keith Lawless, senior director, Business Sustainability and Improvement, Air Transat, Estelle Beaudry, VP, Business Development and Environment, Aerocycle, Ron Haber, president and CEO, Aerocycle, and Lemay.