WestJet Expands To Asia, With Calgary To Tokyo Route

I thought WestJet had a codeshare partnership with Japan Airlines? Maybe Japan Airlines will be offering onward domestic connections in Japan.

No matter how skeptical you are, Ben, I'm more skeptical. "Identity crisis" is right. Far too much of Westjet's DNA is Low Cost Carrier. Factions within the company keep trying to change this, but they hit roadblocks and despite the lipstick, the pig ends up with no loyalty program, no alliance membership. I suspect they do have something in place for connectivity in Asia, to be announced soon, but so what? You can only get tickets for cash, not with any program's points. Air Canada's Vancouver-Bangkok route is similarly interesting, maybe more promising. At the end of the day, though, I wouldn't fly either.

Would love if this route becomes a sweet spot to earn Delta MQD's, other than some strange routings on AeroMexico, there are few lucrative options out there.

With an 8PM arrival time into Tokyo, there are, as of now, NO flights on Japan Airlines leaving after that time. Until the next morning. No connectivity. So this flight will live/ die based on willingness of people to fly to/ from Calgary and Canada/USA. Unless, of course, Japan Airlines decides to add a bank of flights to connect solely to / from this flight on a seasonal, non-daily basis. Doubtful. TBD and good luck!

NRT arriv at 8pm is tough. For Tokyo bound pax, it means getting to Tokyo proper at around 10pm at the earliest. For others connecting, that means spending 1 night layover. I do hope Westjet can make it work. West coast to Tokyo routes are expensive and more competition is better IMO.

They should be able to make this work just based on the configuration of their 787-9s which are high density.
Canadian airlines do have a geographic advantage in being able to connect passengers to the US so they are tapping into the US market.
Narita is not as valuable as Haneda but the Japan to N. America market will return - it will just take longer than Europe.

They're the Canadian JetBlue at this point.

My wish came true! I would definitely take advantage of this! As for schedule, this is no different to one of ANA's flights pre-pandemic between YVR and HND. I remember arriving at night, stayed at a capsule hotel in the airport and flew out the next morning onward to my final destination.

this is only attractive to a hub-captive. WS will have to do lots of other difficult things to make this attractive to wider market

How much are the air fares?

For the flights are am checking from YUL next July, they are currently undercuting AC by a bit in business, but same in economy...but google shows mostly 2 stops, YYC and YYZ...just a few dates with one stop in YYC. There is lots of demande for Japan now, but I'm not sure this will be viable in the long run. Heck I'm surprized AC still operates the YUL-NRT flight.

Westjet's also in talks with ICN to launch service to Seoul. I agree with Ben that Westjet may not have enough 787 fleet to serve all the routes, but ICN may be better than NRT for them because Korean Air already has codeshares with Westjet(which makes it a lot easier to make connections via ICN), and Delta has JV with Korean Air, and so does Westjet with Delta.
Maybe they can expand the transpacific JV between DL-KE to DL-KE-WS.

Don’t forget they have partnership with Delta. They can get Delta feed, especially from SLC!

2500$ each way for GW. Non-stop. I was excited to see the route. But not the price.

They just try to get some quick bucks from Japan reopening imo.

WestJet is looking west, and saying Buh-Bye to those of us in Nova Scotia who regularly fly east. According to Simple Flying:
"... while Halifax to Dublin, Glasgow, London Gatwick, and Paris CDG... ran in summer 2022, they won't return next year."

For $311 r/t from Seattle I had to book it

Wow, that's a horrible arrival time for NRT. As you mentioned, really no JL connections that late and transportation to Tokyo gets really infrequent that late as well. Seems it wasn't very well thought out.

I agree with Bob. Unless your final destination is Tokyo, you won't be getting a flight to anywhere else, certainly not domestically. Why didn't they consider using Haneda to make it competitive with Air Canada, which is currently only using Narita?

I just flew Calgary to Tokyo This past May and June 2023 and the flights were pretty full, though I didn't see what economy looked like on my way to Tokyo. The arrival time in NRT was changed in February after I booked my tickets to 430pm. There were 6 Westjet connections codeshared with JAL on the board to other locations in Asia.
We departed NRT at 630pm and arrived in YYC at 1230pm, plenty of time for a plethora of connections.

I flew from PHX to YYC to NRT. I booked three round trips in January for $1100 each with stretch seating. I was notified of the fare by my Scott's Cheap Flights subscription and they listed it as a mistake fare, so I booked ASAP.
I upgraded to Premium Economy curing check-in on the YYC to NRT leg for $345 a person. Worth every penny.

I was excited to see WestJet expand into Asia and give me a better airline than United to use when flying out of Denver (which is my home airport). I much prefer WestJet and always take them to Canada. I flew out of Phoenix for the Toyko flight bc we dropped our little ones off at the grandparents there first.