Swoop ready for takeoff
There’s been strong demand for WestJet’s ultra low-cost carrier, president says
TORONTO Canadian travellers looking to purchase cheap flight tickets are about to get another option with the launch of WestJet Airlines Ltd.’s ultra low-cost carrier Swoop on Wednesday.
The inaugural flight, which will carry passengers from Hamilton to Abbotsford, B.C., will depart early Wednesday morning.
Although that flight still had a few seats open as of Tuesday afternoon, Swoop’s president Steven Greenway says demand for the summer season has been strong, a sign that there is a market demand for an ultra low-cost carrier in Canada. He said the airline sold its 100,000th seat on Monday.
“We’ve had very high load factors so far,” Greenway said in an interview. “We’re looking good.”
The launch of Swoop comes after several months of turbulence at the company, including a nearstrike by the company ’s pilot union largely over the hiring practices at the new ULCC.
WestJet and the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) managed to avert a strike in late May after agreeing to a settlement process that would include mediation and binding arbitration, if necessary. The arbitrator overseeing negotiations ruled in early June that WestJet pilots can now fly Swoop, which will also be represented by ALPA.
Greenway said the company achieved what it had wanted through the ruling.
“First of all, WestJet pilots are allowed to come and fly for Swoop, which is fantastic,” he said. “The second part is that they can come over and fly for Swoop at Swoop rates and condition, so that preserves our economic ULCC model which is key for us going forward.”
The key tenet of the ultra lowcost model is keeping operating costs as low as possible. Greenway says the company is still targeting a cost per available seat mile (CASM), a measure of how much an airline spends to fly passengers, of six cents excluding fuel costs. He hopes to reach that benchmark by August of next year.
But Swoop isn’t the only ULCC hoping to make it in the notoriously tough Canadian aviation market.
Flair Airlines, which recently expanded its route network from 90 to 188 flights per week, is already operating in Canada and is increasingly adjusting its operations to be more ULCC-focused. On Wednesday, the airline — which had previously operated as a charter — announced it will be relocating its operations and executive base from Kelowna, B.C., to Edmonton.
“Kelowna was a fine base for a charter operator but it didn’t really give us the scope, the potential we need as we’re growing,” Flair Airlines executive David Tait said.