WestJet Moves To Right Itself After Bumpy London Launch
by Michele McDonaldPhoto:
WestJet, the Canadian low-cost carrier, has taken steps to alleviate what chief executive officer Gregg Saretsky called “teething pains” of the launch of its London service.
In early May, the carrier launched service to London Gatwick from six cities—Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, Toronto and St. John—using four 767-300 aircraft that had been retired from the Qantas fleet.
It is not uncommon for airlines to experience operational and other issues when they launch new routes, particular international services, but WestJet’s have been particularly painful, with frequent delays of one to four hours.
From May 1 to June 30, the on-time performance of the Vancouver-London flight, which operates six times weekly, was just 5%, according to FlightStats, a provider of flight data services and applications.
In a video produced for WestJet employees, Saretsky said the jets, which have an average age of 24 years, “have been giving us lots of grief, lots of mechanical problems.”
“We’re finding that when things break, because some of the parts are so old, we don’t have them in store,” he said, and finding and obtaining parts can take two or three days.
At first, WestJet called upon Omni Airlines, a charter company, to provide “hot spare” aircraft as needed. But then the carrier decided to “get really proactive with maintenance,” Saretsky said. It put an Omni aircraft into service from June 19 to July 5, rotating the WestJet 767s out of service for extensive checks.
A WestJet spokesperson told TMR that despite the numerous delays, there have been only “a handful” of cancellations, and “in every case we either chartered an aircraft or provided guests with travel on other airlines to mitigate the delays to their travel plans as quickly as possible.”
