WestJet stands by safety of Max 8 jets
Between labour strife, high fuel costs and competition, WestJet Airlines Ltd. chief executive Ed Sims has faced strong headwinds in his first year at the helm, including, for the first time in 13 years, reporting a quarterly loss.
His turnaround plans were well underway this spring as WestJet pursued its scaled-back expansion plans after landing its first collective agreement with its newly unionized pilots through binding arbitration, a big improvement from a year prior when pilots threatened to strike before the May long weekend.
But then on March 10, almost a year to the day after Sims was named CEO, the Calgary-based airline — indeed, the entire industry — was confronted with another major challenge when Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed minutes after take off, killing all 157 people on board. The accident marked the second time a Boeing 737 Max 8 fatally crashed in five months due to malfunctioning software, resulting in the aircraft’s grounding worldwide.
WestJet parked its 13 Max 8s, seven per cent of its fleet of 181 aircraft, affecting more than 100,000 WestJet customers in the six weeks since. But Sims, who extended sympathies to those affected by the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines crashes, has no plans to cancel orders for 37 more 737 Max aircraft.
“We have over 45 of these aircraft that we plan to operate over the next five to 10 years. We have no plans to change that,” he said in a wide-ranging interview on his first 13 months as CEO at WestJet’s headquarters in Calgary on Tuesday.
“We firmly believe that when we come through this process of re-certifying the software on the flight management system on the flight deck, this will be the safest narrow-bodied aircraft in the skies.”
Sims sees a “very clear path” for the reintroduction of the 737 Max aircraft, which WestJet operated with a “blemish-free record” before the crashes. Sims recognizes it will take work to convince people it’s OK to get on a 737 Max 8 even after the technical upgrade and pilot retraining. “Perhaps most challenging is changing public opinion and building confidence in the safety of this aircraft,” said Sims, who is confident in the pilot training process.
“I have absolute confidence that our pilots know how to operate both the Boeing next generation aircraft and the new variant of the Max. It is essentially just another variant of the 737 we’ve flown for 20 years.”