WESTJET’S FLEET SET TO SOAR
The Hamilton Spectator
January 3, 2001
By Steve Arnold

Airline adding five jets in ongoing growth that could help Hamilton

Look for WestJet Airlines to expand its services again this year as the feisty upstart continues to cash in on the turmoil in Canada’s air travel industry.

WestJet spokesman Siobhan Vinish said the Calgary-based discount airline expects to add five new aircraft to its fleet in 2001, and six next years, and is actively seeking new routes for those jets to serve.

"We will continue to follow the strategy of slow and controlled growth that has worked so well for us over the last five years, but we are adding aircraft so we’ll be looking for markets for those aircraft" she said in an interview.

Those additions are the first wave of a plan to add up to 94 aircraft over the next several years. Deals to buy or lease 36 aircraft have already been signed and options have been taken out on another 58. Those aircraft will be financed with the proceeds of a $54.4 million stock offering from the company last month.

Hamilton’s airport will benefit from any WestJet expansion because it is the hub of the airline’s eastern operations, offering 50 flights a week to destinations such as Moncton, Ottawa, Thunder Bay, Winnipeg and Regina.

To November, the airline said its load factor – the number of available seats filled per flight – averaged 76.6 per cent, up from 72.1 per cent in 1999.

US Airways Express is the only other passenger service operating from Hamilton, offering four daily turbo-prop flights to Pittsburgh.

Vinish explained there are three ways for an airline to expand service – to increase the frequency of flights on established routes, to stretch established routs to new destinations or to open entirely new routes "and we’ll be using one or all of those options".

For WestJet’s Hamilton-based operations that could mean a new service to Montreal, a direct Hamilton-Calgary link or an extension of the Hamilton-Thunder Bay-Calgary route. "We’re watching all of our opportunities in Canada closely," she said, "Hamilton is part of those plans because more and more people are becoming aware of the advantages of flying out of Hamilton."

The first of WestJet’s new aircraft went into service in November. More deliveries are expected in the second quarter of this year. WestJet, which took to the sky in February 1996, has become one of Canada’s shining success stories, boasting profitable operations from the beginning and double digit earnings growth.

Third-quarter profits rose nearly 73 per cent to $10.4 million, up from $6 million for the same period in 1999. Year-to-date net earnings are up 98.6 per cent, from $11.1 million in 1999 to $22 million in 2000.

University of Calgary airline expert Anthony Perl credits much of WestJet’s success to its ability to capture market share following the demise of Canadian Airlines and to cast itself as the immediate alternative for business travellers and those unhappy with the Air Canada monopoly.

Perl added that one expansion he’d like to see WestJet make is to start offering flights to the U.S., a market he feels would be especially popular with business travellers.

American routes are a future possibility, Vinish said, but the company’s immediate attention is focused on Canada.