Description
Being part of Air Canada is to become part of an iconic Canadian symbol, recently ranked the best Airline in North America. Let your career take flight by joining our diverse and vibrant team at the leading edge of passenger aviation.
This position is expected to build airline partnerships that drive value. As the Manager, Partnership Optimization, you’ll be part of an international team with exposure to different geographies of the world by developing, enhancing and managing interline and codeshare partnerships as well as evaluating and implementing more strategic airline cooperations.
You’ll help to grow Air Canada’s international network by contributing to and executing the partnership strategy. We count on your strong presentation and influencing skills to effectively evaluate, negotiate, and optimize our interline and codeshare agreements.
The Manager, Partnership Optimization reports into the Senior Manager, Interline Partnerships & Itinerary Integrity.
Responsibilities:
- Identify, secure, and develop new partnership opportunities to support Air Canada’s international network growth.
- Continuously monitor the competitive environment, make concrete recommendations to defend and improve Air Canada’s competitive position through partnership development and/or existing partnership enhancements.
- Develop and implement regional interline and codeshare strategies that complement the work being done by various commercial teams, including Sales, Network Planning and Revenue Management (RM).
- Develop and maintain a solid understanding of commercial and market knowledge particularly with regards to seasonality, competition, and other market forces.
- Foster a strong working relationship with key internal stakeholders, such as Network Planning, RM, Revenue Accounting, Scheduling, Legal and IT, to ensure complementarity between strategies, provide necessary partnership inputs and develop and execute initiatives to optimize our partnership strategy.
- Motivate and drive cross-functional teams within Air Canada in support of the partnership strategy.
- Lead, support and guide the negotiation and implementation of interline and codeshare agreements to be financially viable and in line with AC commercial strategies.
- Continuously develop tools, such as those to facilitate the evaluation of the partnerships, to expedite the monitoring of partner performance and to support the commercial teams.
- Cultivate strong relationships with airline partners to explore new opportunities beyond initial scope of the partnership.
- Oversee financial evaluations of new and existing interline, codeshare and joint venture relationships.
- Interact with senior management on partnership performance and reporting while ensuring accuracy.
- Manage all activities related to the negotiations from initiation to signature.
- Contribute information and recommendations to partnership strategic plans and reviews; prepare and complete action plans; resolve problems; complete audits; identify trends; deliver quarterly reporting and implement key deliverables in a timely manner.
- Present and secure buy-in for alliance ideas and plans with internal teams, including senior management.
Qualifications
- Post-secondary degree and 5+ years of experience in the commercial branch of an airline, transportation, travel industry or related industry.
- Demonstrated leadership skills in complex environments to drive initiatives while working across organizations and structuring approaches to new opportunities.
- Ability to manage a large volume of priorities effectively and simultaneously to completion.
- Excellent project management skills with the ability to drive cross-functional teams to implement complex projects.
- Proven ability to develop and present PowerPoint presentations for executives.
- Demonstrated ability to form concepts, solutions, and visions both as an individual and collaboratively.
- Highly analytical with strong quantitative skills and attention to detail.
- Strong team orientation with the ability to work independently.
- Effective negotiation skills and high degree of diplomacy
- Ability to develop and implement creative solutions and influence others in their adoption.
- Proven ability to recognize, analyze, and act on business cases around strategic partnerships.
- Excellent oral and written communication skills, including experience in presenting and speaking publicly
- Excellent Word, Excel and PowerPoint capability
- Understanding of the key functions within the commercial branch of an airline
Conditions of Employment:
- Candidates must be eligible to work in the country of interest, at the time any offer of employment is made and seeking any required work permits/visas or other authorizations which may be required is the sole responsibility of the candidates applying for this position.
Linguistic Requirements
Based on equal qualifications, preference will be given to bilingual candidates.
Diversity and Inclusion
Air Canada is strongly committed to Diversity and Inclusion and aims to create a healthy, accessible and rewarding work environment which highlights employees’ unique contributions to our company’s success.
As an equal opportunity employer, we welcome applications from all to help us build a diverse workforce which reflects the diversity of our customers, and communities, in which we live and serve.
Air Canada thanks all candidates for their interest; however only those selected to continue in the process will be contacted.
