TORONTO — After the challenging pandemic years, the WestJet Group has surpassed its pre-pandemic capacity levels and returned to profitability, setting the airline up for success as it continues its strategy and grows its offering for Canadians.

That was the message from WestJet CEO Alexis von Hoensbroech, in Toronto to address key stakeholders and community members, hosted by the Toronto Region Board of Trade.

In his address, von Hoensbroech shed light on the airline’s recent accomplishments and shared insights into its strategic outlook and plans to drive the Group’s growth strategy as Canada’s leading low-cost airline.

“With our country’s long flight distances across its vast geographic landscape, Canadians from coast-to-coast deserve access to air travel that is affordable and reliable,” said von Hoensbroech. “For 27 years, we have been committed to affordable air travel and today, we are seeing this furthered through the benefits of our growth plan in action as we enhance domestic connectivity from Western to Eastern Canada and provide Canadians from British Columbia to Newfoundland with increased affordable leisure and vacation options.”

Von Hoensbroech noted significant advancements and achievements that have propelled the airline and its growth plan forward …

Serving Canadians coast to coast

For the 2023/2024 winter season, the WestJet Group – including both WestJet and Sunwing Airlines – will provide more seats than any other Canadian airline across 230 nonstop routes from 26 Canadian communities to 55 popular sun destinations in the U.S., Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central America.

And the Group’s newly formed vacations division, Sunwing Vacations Group – which encompasses both Sunwing Vacations and WestJet Vacations – forms the largest Canadian tour operator.Sunwing Vacations Group includes five vacation and retail travel brands, as announced earlier this month: Sunwing Vacations and WestJet Vacations, U.S. tour operator Vacation Express, and travel retailers SellOffVacations.com and Luxe Destination Weddings.

Last month von Hoensbroech announced that planning and integration activities for Sunwing Airlines into WestJet Group were well underway, with the goal of completing integration efforts by October 2024.

Operational excellence & shared accountability

Von Hoensbroech noted that following a turbulent return to stability after the pandemic, WestJet has made significant strides in its reliability through its Operational Excellence program. With its focus on improving guest experience and delivering a reliable product, the airline significantly improved upon its on-time performance during the peak summer travel months this year.

Plus, over the last 18 months, the WestJet Group has hired more than 5,000 employees to improve upon all areas of its guest experience. The airline continues its advocacy for transparency and shared accountability across the entirety of the aviation ecosystem, with the goal of achieving meaningful and sustained improvements.

“We understand the frustration of travel disruptions and echo our guests’ concerns about the current air passenger rights,” said von Hoensbroech. “Airlines are currently the only accountable service providers in the air travel ecosystem. While we remain committed to compensating our guests when appropriate, we seek meaningful improvements under the Air Passenger Protection Regulations (APPR) to create a shared accountability framework throughout Canada’s aviation ecosystem. Without this, meaningful improvements should not be expected across Canadian air travel.”

It’s a message that von Hoensbroech took to Ottawa last month, when he met with government officials and parliamentarians to emphasize the need for shared accountability and reconsideration of APPR reforms.

The WestJet Group’s bright future for Canadians

The WestJet Group’s integration of Swoop will wrap up on Oct. 28. Together with the further integration of Sunwing Airlines, the Group’s expanding scale will significantly enhance its ability to provide affordability, reliability and choice to its guests, said von Hoensbroech.

With its expanding fleet of B737 aircraft and the largest narrow-body orderbook in Canada, WestJet will soon begin to implement plans to densify its aircraft cabins to distribute costs across even more seats, while continuing to serve guests who prefer a more premium offering. Von Hoensbroech said that by leveraging the ultra-low fare products pioneered by Swoop and vacation packages offered by Sunwing Vacations, the WestJet Group will harness a newfound ability to provide affordable fares alongside increased leisure vacation packages across Canada through its growing fleet.

Additional and ongoing updates on WestJet’s progress against its growth strategy are available at https://www.westjet.com/en-ca/who-we-are/our-strategy.