WestJet, Canada’s second largest airline, has just announced a pretty significant aircraft order.
Continue reading: WestJet Places Big Boeing 737 MAX Order
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
I believe that WestJet has cancelled their order for its remaining 3 787s. They seem to be returning to its original focus of Western Canada
WestJet has been taking forever to repaint aircraft that aren’t the 787 or 737 MAX into the new livery. It even shows the old livery on planes like the 737-800 on their website. I wonder what is up with that. Are they not happy with the new livery?
They're probably doing the same thing Spirit did: only repaint aircraft when they were due for heavy mtx.
I love Westjet when traveling to & within Canada. This is good news for WJ. The new aircraft will be nice to fly. I sure hope that their European business is decent. I'd like to try these routes out.
Also as a Canadian, I can say that Westjet has made some pants-on-head retarded decisions with their loyalty program
Disappointed that WestJet decided to support a family of aircraft that was, along with Boeing, completely responsible for the death of 346 people. Boeing barely recognizes or apologizes for it and not a single person from that organization was found criminally responsible. Have been avoiding flying any 737max and will continue to do so
WestJet has finally standardized their premium product with dedicated 2x2 seating on all 737 aircraft. But there's other areas where they seem to be going in many different directions. They've copied the ULCCs with more expensive checked bags when purchasing them within T-24 iirc. AC is leaving them behind when it comes to status (although they now have a status match offer), no current lounge expansion plans, and they're still trying to carve out a route network for themselves. With Canada Jetlines and Lynx both targeting YYC-YYZ as one of their first routes, WS has their competition cut out for them, especially with price sensitive leisure pax.
They’ve clearly bought these for the bucket and spade business to Florida/carribbean/Mexico to keep unit costs low they’ll probably also end up on high frequency oil patch routes and maybe Vancouver routes. Otherwise these are just going to be too big. You aren’t going to see these being run Into Saskatoon, St John’s NL, etc. there is a reason they’re one of the few airlines to ever operate the 600 and have a large fleet of 700’s. Start getting much larger and it’s simply too large and your incremental fixed operating costs from flying empty offset your reduced unit costs qtoo quickly.
They must have got one Stella deal
I have flown Westjet a lot. Their narrow body “premium economy” is equivalent to Air Canada narrow body J or domestic F on major US airlines. I agree that they are the Canadian JetBlue and should compete with AC and not ULCCs. Those of us in the western part of the country need a reliable alternative to AC.
They would do well to expand their 787 fleet and overseas route network as they offer a widebody product that is better than AC. While they are partners with AF/KL and DL, they should be full SkyTeam members to facilitate and expand connectivity.
Ben’s comment about “cohesive strategy’ is spot on. They’re trying to be everything to everyone and doing a poor job of them all. Any airline that thinks they can call an extra 4” of legroom a premium seat is grasping at straws.
And I forgot to mention an extra 4” of legroom on a Q400. An extra 40” of legroom on a Q400 won’t make it a premium seat. There is a reason Alaska is ditching those awful planes.
It's hardly a surprise that an all-Boeing carrier* would buy Boeing.
* Granted, WestJet also flies the Dash 8 and Saab 340, but Boeing makes nothing to compete with those aircraft.
They may position themselves as a low cost carrier but they are no means a low price carrier. It's a duopoly in Canada, so AC and WS have no reason to lower prices. The only time they lower prices is to price upstart LCCs out of the market.
The Saabs are operated by Pacific Coastal Airlines, a privately owned, capacity supplier to 'Westjetlink'.
The Dash 8's are operated by Westjet Encore a wholly owned subsidiary of WS.
Your remark about Westjets strategy is bang on, it's very messy. They traditionally have marketed themselves as the low cost option against Air Canada and have very low loyalty thresholds and offer frequent air Canada status matches. I travel a bit with WJ for convenience when AC doesn't have an option and my experience is mixed.
Firstly their pricing no longer matches their existing USP and in many cases is MORE expensive on routes shared with AC. Then often, prices for their premium cabin are less expensive than their economy which makes no sense and devalues the point of having status loyalty as upgrades are less likely, again this baffles me. Their status levels are weak and really just a bag tag to have, the main advantage I have found apart from lounge access is the reciprocal rewards with Delta and status recognition from them although when at WJ Platinum you are always the bottom of the upgrade list.
In general, I like WestJets soft and hard product on both their 737's and 787's and their one lounge in Calgary is very nice, nicer than any of the AC domestic lounges however again their strategy to compete with AC doesn't stack up with a lack of good lounges anywhere else.
Bottom line is, if you fly 2-3 times a month in Canada, WestJet is probably your best bet in terms of value for the amount of travel. Anything over 4-5 flights a month then flying AC makes the most sense as long as you can hit 50K and if you can hit SE100k with AC then WestJet only makes sense as a route gap filler as it is for me.
Q400 is my biggest headache. Quite literally.
I saw an article last week that they are about to start producing them again in Alberta, preserve us!!!