Despite reporting a first-quarter loss of nearly a billion dollars, Air Canada CEO Michael Rousseau says year-over-year improvement in the airline’s results is clear evidence that a recovery is underway. The airline said it lost $974 million in the first three months of 2022 compared with a loss of $1.30 billion a year earlier, but that its revenue more than tripled.

After the Omicron variant of COVID-19 slowed bookings in January, the airline’s sales then spiked in March as travel restrictions eased, pushing bookings to 90% of 2019 levels.

“We are very positive on the rest of the year and continued growth over the next several years,” Rousseau told analysts on a conference call Tuesday.

The country’s largest airline maintained full-year forecasts that capacity will average out at roughly three-quarters of 2019.

However, Air Canada’s capacity continues to lag behind US airlines and business travel remains at half the volume it did three years ago, said chief commercial officer Lucie Guillemette.

“International might take a little bit longer,” she said, referring to overseas business bookings, even as domestic and leisure travel ramps up.

Air Canada hopes to take advantage of a renewed appetite for corporate travel in the United States as it shores up its US flight schedule, she added.

To that end, the airline is expanding its North American network for Summer, including the launch of new service on four transborder and three domestic routes, as well as the restoration of 41 North American routes. Air Canada plans to operate to 51 Canadian and 46 US airports this summer.

Internationally, the airline will feature 34 routes relaunching across the Atlantic and Pacific.

Meanwhile, rising fuel costs, inflation and uncertainty stemming from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine add more headwinds to a buffeted industry.

“We believe that much of this increase can be recovered in fares,” chief financial officer Amos Kazzaz said of jet fuel prices, which were up nearly 119% year over year as of April 22, according to the International Air Transport Association. Spiking in March amid the war in Ukraine, the price has nudged down by 5.5% over the past month.