Air Canada, the country’s largest airline, hires cabin crew, airport agents, ramp crews and contact centre staff from coast to coast. Frontline pay on recent postings runs from about $19.90 an hour at the check-in counter to $23.36 on the ramp.
Air Canada airport and cabin jobs
Four entry roles with their pay, training and clearance rules.
See Job Openings at Air Canada →✈️ Flight plan for this page
- Six frontline teams and what they do
- Posted wages and the new cabin crew deal
- Passport, swimming and security clearance rules
- Which airline brand you would actually join
Air Canada teams, from cabin to cargo shed
Most entry jobs sit at the airport or on board. Office and pilot careers need degrees or licences, but several frontline teams train you from scratch.
In the cabin
Flight attendants run safety demos, serve meals and manage emergencies at altitude.
Counter and gate
Customer experience staff check in travellers, tag bags and board flights.
Ramp
Station attendants load holds, drive baggage tugs and marshal aircraft in any weather.
Cargo
Crews build freight pallets and move shipments between trucks and planes.
Contact centre
Agents rebook trips and answer Aeroplan questions by phone and chat.
Hangar
Licensed aircraft maintenance engineers inspect and repair the fleet overnight.
Frontline pay at Air Canada
Cabin crew earn a rate per flight hour, and since the arbitration award early this year part of their time on the ground is paid as well. Airport figures are taken from actual job ads or from Indeed.
💡 The ticket perk grows with time: employees and close family can fly standby for a service charge plus taxes, and staff say the passes start after six months on the job.
Clearances, passports and languages Air Canada checks
Anyone working behind airport security needs a Transportation Security Clearance from Transport Canada. Cabin crew face extra rules on travel documents and water safety.
Getting through Air Canada’s selection
Apply on the portal
Every job goes through the airline’s careers site; airports take no walk-in resumes.
Screening
Assessments and recorded or live interview questions narrow the list.
Offer and clearance
Transport Canada can take up to 60 working days to decide, longer with time abroad.
Training
Cabin crew spend seven full-time weeks in Vancouver, Toronto or Montréal.
Air Canada only hires adults, so you must have turned 18 and be legally allowed to take a job here. Ramp and cargo work also means lifting bags all shift, outdoors in winter.
⚠️ Seniority rules the schedule: new flight attendants usually begin on reserve, meaning on-call days, and bids for routes, days off and base transfers go by seniority. Airports run around the clock, so agents start on early and late shifts.
Air Canada, Rouge and Express: who flies where
Mainline and Air Canada Rouge, the leisure brand, hire their own cabin crews. Air Canada Express flights are flown by partner airlines such as Jazz, which recruit separately.
Besides the three hubs, the airline has large teams in Calgary, Halifax, Ottawa, Québec City, Edmonton and Winnipeg.
Your first step into Air Canada
Postings are filtered by airport, team and language. Compare four beginner roles side by side before sending an application.
Cabin, counter or ramp? Line up Air Canada’s entry jobs first.
Pay, training length and the clearance needed for each.
See Job Openings at Air CanadaBefore you apply to Air Canada
Figures and rules come from Air Canada’s careers and benefits pages, the company’s most recent annual report, coverage of the flight attendant arbitration award, Transport Canada’s clearance rules, airport job postings and pay reported by employees on Indeed.