. The company began operations on 1 November 1996, when the government sold and moved the country's air navigation services from Transport Canada to the new not-for-profit private entity for
CAD$1.5 billion. A number of solutions were considered, including forming a
crown corporation, but rejected in favour of outright privatization, the new company being formed as a non-share-capital
not-for-profit, run by a board of directors who were initially appointed and now elected. The company expects that the non-credit related fair value variances from face value on restructured and non-restructured ABCP (amounting cumulatively to $33 at 30 November 2013) will be recovered by the time the notes mature in fiscal year 2017. By fiscal year end 2013, the company's revenues reached $1,231 million, which exceeded its pre-recession level and fiscal year 2014 saw further revenue growth to $1,272 million. During the period 2005-15, the company held service charge rates steady.
Hudson Bay ADS-B deployment In the mid-2000s, the company decided to address the lack of radar coverage in the
Canadian north, especially in the area of
Hudson Bay where airliners transition from the
North Atlantic Tracks system to
Canadian Domestic Airspace by deploying a ground-based
Automatic Dependent Surveillance–Broadcast (ADS-B) network. The five station network was operational on 15 January 2009, filling a gap in radar coverage which allowed reduced separation of airline flights by ADS-B tracking over procedural separation. In January 2009, Nav Canada estimated that the ADS-B system would save its customers and reduce and equivalent emissions by per year. In November 2010, a second set of six ground-based ADS-B transceivers was later deployed along the coast of
Labrador and
Nunavut, providing an additional . In March 2012 four more stations were added in
Greenland, increasing the area covered by . Nav Canada invested $150 million for a 51% stake in Aireon.{{Citation The cross-linked
Low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites make it possible, for the first time, to track aircraft from pole-to-pole, including oceanic airspace and remote regions, facilitating fuel savings, greenhouse gas emissions reduction, and enhanced safety and efficiency for airspace users. The added surveillance that Aireon will provide will enable air traffic control to significantly reduce the separation standard in oceanic and other unsurveilled airspace from approximately or less. This will allow more aircraft to fly at optimum altitudes and to benefit from the prevailing winds such as the
jet stream, further saving fuel and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Aireon CEO Don Thoma estimated that this would result in an average fuel savings of $400 per flight for the three-and-a-half-hour trip across the North Atlantic. The annual fuel cost savings for airlines in the North Atlantic alone would be on the order of $125 million.{{Citation In December 2013, ANSPs from three additional countries joined Nav Canada as partners in Aireon.
ENAV of Italy, the
Irish Aviation Authority and Denmark's
Naviair signed on for a combined investment of $120 million resulting in a new ownership structure for the company with Nav Canada holding 51 per cent, Iridium with 24.5 per cent, ENAV at 12.5 per cent and the Irish Aviation Authority and Naviair each holding 6%.{{Citation (DHC-8-102) formerly used for flight inspection at
Cambridge Bay Airport in 2014 In September 2014, Aireon announced plans to offer ALERT (Aircraft Locating and Emergency Response Tracking), a free supplementary service for emergency tracking of aircraft in trouble. Aireon's ADS-B receivers on Iridium's satellites will already include ALERT's capabilities and the company has decided to make it available free of charge "as a public service." Aireon ALERT could be activated by any certified air-safety organization to request the last known location and flight path of any aircraft carrying an ADS-B transponder, even if the operator does not subscribe to Aireon.{{Citation ==Fleet==