Air Canada receives slot waiver at LGA due to Airbus A220 GTF engine maintenance delays in S25

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has granted Air Canada a slot waiver at New York LaGuardia Airport (LGA) for the previous summer season, with the airline having struggled with maintenance delays for Pratt & Whitney PW1500G engines that power its Airbus A220-300 aircraft.

On December 9, 2025, the FAA published a filing that confirmed that the Canadian carrier was given a waiver following its request in March. The United States regulator affirmed that “the manufacturer’s supply chain and maintenance delays to Air Canada’s fleet of Airbus A220 airplanes installed with Pratt & Whitney engines will impact scheduled operations beyond the carrier’s control for a one-month period within the Summer 2025 scheduling season,” which was between March 31 and April 30.

As such, the FAA granted the waiver to Air Canada, with a single condition that historic slots, based on this relief, “are not eligible for transfer if the slot holder ceases all operations at the airport.”

The importance of the waiver is that the Canadian carrier could have violated the FAA’s use-it-or-lose-it rules, which mandate that each airline has to utilize its LGA slots at least 80% of the time over each two-month period, “or it may not receive historic precedence for the following equivalent scheduling season.”

LGA is one of the slot-controlled airports in the US, with the other two being New York John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA).

When Air Canada requested the waiver in March, it said that the well-reported and documented ongoing PW1500G issues had affected its A220-300 fleet, saying that at the peak of the winter 2024/2025 season, seven out of 34 aircraft were grounded.

Since they are based at either Montréal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport (YUL) or Toronto Pearson International Airport (YYZ), the airline’s services to the East Coast of the US had been affected.

“The supply chain issue to provide a fix for these engine issues is supposed to be resolved later in 2025, but for now, we are still missing 5% of the fleet to operate a full schedule,” Air Canada stated, adding that it had also faced a shortage of pilots at Jazz, its regional airline.

“To operate our slots as much as possible, we have been able to cover the majority without any impact. However, for 4 slots, we request a waiver for the period of 31MAR2025 to 30APR2025, while more Airbus A220s return to active flying after having been grounded for up to a year.”

Currently, Air Canada has three A220-300s parked for maintenance, according to planespotters.net. The Canadian carrier welcomed six aircraft of the type between June 4 and November 21, expanding its fleet of A220-300s to 40 aircraft.

The PW1500G engines, part of the Geared Turbofan (GTF) aircraft engine family, had not been affected by the same powder metal issues that resulted in accelerated removals and inspections of PW1100G engines, which are mounted on the wings of A320neo family aircraft.

However, maintenance delays have been persistent, forcing A220 operators worldwide to ground their aircraft due to the lack of engines. For example, in November, Thanos Pascalis, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Cyprus Airways, which has four A220-300s, shared his grievances in a post on LinkedIn.

The executive said that the airline was notified of another A220 engine repair delay, with the engine having been in a maintenance shop since May. The PW1100G should leave the repair station in March 2026.

“This is the state of the supply chain in 2025! One year removal [after the] installation of an engine that went to [a] shop for a repair! Not an overhaul or LLP change.”

According to data from Cirium, by October 2024, which coincided with the beginning of the winter 2024/2025 season, there were 235 A220-300s in service. Another 68 were stored, with the number of stored A220-300 aircraft growing to 79 in November 2024. While the number of parked aircraft stayed flat in December 2024, during the next three months, it went above 80.

In January, 86 A220-300s were grounded, with the number going down to 80 in February, and then back to 83 in March. In April, the number of stored A220-300s dwindled to 80, and so far, it has steadily decreased.

In December, 342 A220-300s are in service, while 61 aircraft of the type are stored, which are considered aircraft that have not moved for more than 60 days, per Cirium.