In September 1980, de Belleval announced that the Quebec government had purchased an eleven per cent stake in the Nordair airline and was supporting efforts from a group led by Quebecair president Alfred Hamel to purchase Nordair from Air Canada.
He co-founded Air Transat in 1986 after being the director of marketing at Quebecair.
He added that his government's plan was to facilitate a merger of Nordair and Quebecair, a French-language firm owned by the same provincial agency.