Air Canada, Westjet fly fewer people

WestJet Airlines Ltd. cut its revenue expectations Friday due to softer domestic demand and a larger-than-expected impact from the Easter and Passover holidays shifting into the second quarter this year. The airline said it now anticipates revenue per available seat mile for the first quarter of this year to be flat to down slightly year over year, compared to earlier expectations of it to be flat or up slightly. The revised outlook by WestJet came as Canada’s two biggest airlines said their flights last month had a few more empty seats compared to a year ago as they both added capacity. Air Canada and WestJet both reported a lower system load factor for February compared to a year ago. Air Canada had its measure of how full its flights were slip to 79% versus 79.8% a year ago, while WestJet’s load factor fell to 84.6% from 86.1% in February 2013. The decrease at Air Canada came as the airline increased capacity 4.9%, as measured by available seat miles, compared to February 2012. WestJet increased capacity by 9.2%, while traffic gained 7.3% compared to a year ago.