Nolisair was a Canadian company, the parent company of Nationair Canada, a Canadian airline, and of Technair, an aircraft maintenance company. The company was owned by Robert Obadia. The headquarters was located in the Nationair Canada Building on the property of Montréal-Mirabel International Airport in Mirabel, Quebec.

In July 1991, a wet-leased Nationair Canada Douglas DC-8 operating as Nigeria Airways Flight 2120 caught fire shortly after takeoff and crashed just seconds short of an emergency landing, killing all 261 on board. During the investigation, investigators discovered that the project manager for that flight had pressured the Technair crew into releasing the aircraft with underinflated tyres. Two tyres on the left bogie lost structural integrity due to heat build-up and ended up failing during the takeoff roll, leading to the tyre remnants bursting into flames and compromising the aircraft when the landing gear was retracted. The accident exposed several operating problems with the airline and was a major contributing factor to the company's collapse in 1993.

Nationair was not related to a separate defunct airline based in the U.S. with a similar name, Nations Air, which was not established until after Nationair had ceased operations.

Nationair Canada operated charter as well as scheduled passenger services in the late 1980s and early 1990s from bases in Montreal and Toronto, with seasonal bases in Quebec City as well as flights out of Hamilton, Ontario to London, England. At one point, Nationair Canada was Canada's third largest airline, after Air Canada and Canadian Airlines International.

Destinations during the winter months consisted mostly of sunny destinations in Florida, California, the Caribbean, Mexico and South America. Summer destinations included Vancouver and Calgary but had a heavy emphasis on European destinations - mainly England, Scotland, Portugal and France. The airline also had year-round scheduled service between Montreal Mirabel Airport and Brussels, Belgium, serving the route up to daily. In 1988, the airline was operating nonstop service on a scheduled basis between Toronto and London Gatwick Airport. According to the Official Airline Guide (OAG), in 1989 Nationair Canada was operating scheduled nonstop service from Hamilton to London Gatwick as well as nonstop flights from Montreal Mirabel to Brussels with both services being flown with Douglas DC-8 ( stretched "Super DC-8") aircraft.

The airline also tried going head-to-head with Air Canada and Canadian Airlines International operating scheduled flights between Toronto and Montreal, offering low fares and flexible ticketing conditions. However, this scheduled domestic service was fairly short-lived.

During shoulder periods and in order to maximize use of its aircraft, Nationair Canada did a number of sub-contracts. These would sometimes, but not always, include flight attendants as well. This enabled Nationair Canada aircraft to see duty in the Middle East during the run up to the Gulf War doing evacuations, work for the United Nations moving troops into Namibia as well as flights for Nigerian Airways in 1991, in which one flight ended in disaster.

Nationair Canada also did a number of sub-charters for airlines such as Hispania Líneas Aéreas, British European Airlines, Garuda Indonesia, Union des Transports Aériens (UTA) and LTU International (LTU). Nationair Canada had been operating some flights for UTA in 1989 during the period where UTA Flight 772 was destroyed inflight.