WestJet Rewards - New Winter 2011-2012 Services

http://westjet2.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=571

CALGARY, July 20, 2011 /CNW/ - WestJet today announced it will begin additional service to sun destinations from Kelowna, Victoria, Winnipeg, London and Thunder Bay as part of its winter 2011-2012 flight schedule. The additional service represents significant growth to a number of popular U.S. and international destinations.

The Press only mentioned new routes and selected increase.

It didn't elaborate on the new increases and cancellation/reduction on 7 routes.

YEG-PHX was doubled to twice daily!

What routes were cancelled?

YEG-PHX was doubled to twice daily!

What routes were cancelled?

I haven't post this on my site yet (Scheduled for Thursday 21JUL11) but I'll just post it here for now anyways. Note these are not mentioned in WS Press Release.

Increase (Frequency/Capaciy), comparison from W10
Calgary – Cancun Increase from 6 weekly in W10 to 8 weekly in W11
Calgary – Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo Increase from 1 to 2 weekly
Calgary – Las Vegas Increase from 14 to 17 weekly
Calgary – Palm Springs Increase from 9 to 14 weekly
Calgary – Phoenix Increase from 14 to 16 weekly
Calgary – Puerto Vallarta Increase from 5 to 7 weekly
Calgary – San Diego Increase from 3 weekly to 4 weekly (Winter operation changes)
Calgary – San Jose/Los Cabos Increase from 4 to 5 weekly
Edmonton – Las Vegas Increase from 14 to 15 weekly
Edmonton – Palm Springs Boeing 737-800 replace -700 in W10, Daily
Edmonton – Phoenix Increase from 7 to 10 weekly
Kelowna – Las Vegas 1 of 2 weekly Boeing 737-800 replace -700
Moncton – Orlando Winter season service operates from 01MAR12, 2 weeks later than previous season (W10 was eff 17FEB11)
Montreal – Cancun Increase from 3 to 4 weekly
Montreal – Montego Bay Increase from 2 to 3 weekly
Montreal – Punta Cana Increase from 2 to 3 weekly
Ottawa – Cancun Increase from 3 to 4 weekly
Ottawa – Punta Cana Increase from 2 to 3 weekly
Regina – Las Vegas Boeing 737-800 replace -700 in W10, 2 weekly
Regina – Phoenix Increase from 1 to 2 weekly
Saskatoon – Las Vegas Boeing 737-800 replace -700 in W10, 2 weekly
Saskatoon – Phoenix Increase from 1 to 2 weekly
Toronto – Ft. Lauderdale Boeing 737-800 replace -700 in W10, 2 Daily
Toronto – Las Vegas Boeing 737-800 replace -700 on selected flights
Vancouver – Cancun Increase from 5 to 6 weekly
Vancouver – Honolulu Increase from 11 to 13 weekly
Vancouver – Kahului Increase from 12 to 14 weekly
Vancouver – Kona Increase from 2 to 3 weekly
Vancouver – Phoenix Increase from 6 weekly 737-700 to Daily 737-800
Victoria – Las Vegas Boeing 737-800 replace -700 in W10, 2 weekly

Capacity/Frequency Reduction or Cancellations:
Calgary – Montego Bay Canceled
Montreal – Las Vegas Reduce from 3 to 2 weekly
Thunder Bay – Punta Cana Canceled
Toronto – Orlando Reduce from 16 to 14 weekly
Vancouver – Mazatlan Boeing 737-700 replace -800, 1 weekly
Vancouver – Montego Bay Canceled
Vancouver – Puerto Vallarta Boeing 737-700 replace -800, 6 weekly

For the cancelled routes, I checked them week by week, and they're not displaying. For the moment I'm treating them as cancellation (same with Air Canada's changes), unless they're being loaded back to system in the coming weeks.

Above info are as of 20JUL11. New changes are possible, but multiple changes isn't really WS' style.

Thanks for that!

I noticed YYC-SNA won't run through the winter and YYZ-PSP appears to be cancelled as well.

Got my schedule change notices from Expedia bright and early this morning.

FLL-YOW now departs FLL at 1:25pm instead of 5:25pm. Wheeee, there goes my day in Florida.

Thunder Bay – Punta Cana Canceled

How am I not surprised...

I wish WS flew 7 flights to SNA and 7 to PSP from YYC in the winter instead of 14 to PSP. What am I going to do in PSP? At least SNA is a nice alternative to LAX for longer stays.

Thanks for that!

I noticed YYC-SNA won't run through the winter and YYZ-PSP appears to be cancelled as well.

YYZ PSP is operating from 01FEB12

Not sure about YYC SNA, thought it's only summer seasonal

Minor addition.

YVR - LIH is increasing from 2 to 3 weekly as well

They will cancel the Toronto to New Orleans route it appears:

http://www.takeoffeh.com/stories/story.php?id=611

So last year they scrapped Atlantic City and this year they scrapped New Orleans, who will it be next? I wonder if AC will follow suit since they introduced service to New Orleans at around the same time as WS.

They will cancel the Toronto to New Orleans route it appears:

http://www.takeoffeh.com/stories/story.php?id=611

So last year they scrapped Atlantic City and this year they scrapped New Orleans, who will it be next? I wonder if AC will follow suit since they introduced service to New Orleans at around the same time as WS.

AC introduced the route first and plans to upgauge as above expectations.

AC introduced the route first and plans to upgauge as above expectations.

AC also has a long history of being in New Orleans, which was truncated by Katrina. I'm surprised that it took them as long as it did to get back into that market, but still it is good that they are back there and apparently doing well.

There is no doubt that WS has a good business model (profitable quarter after profitable quarter simply can't be argued against...), but one of the limitations of going into some markets primarily as a vacation carrier is that they are never going to offer enough flights to also attract regular business traffic. Atlantic City and New Orleans show that the model doesn't alwys work.

The codeshares with AA will help them to get around that problem to a certain degree. I'm happy to see that some of the destinations I frequent in the Western US can now be reached fairly easily on WS and AA via SFO, though it is still hard to beat UA through their DEN hub out of YQR for good connections.

There is no doubt that WS has a good business model (profitable quarter after profitable quarter simply can't be argued against...), but one of the limitations of going into some markets primarily as a vacation carrier is that they are never going to offer enough flights to also attract regular business traffic. Atlantic City and New Orleans show that the model doesn't alwys work.

Bang on. For example, I have to go to a conference in May (YQR-LAS). WS flies to LAS two days a week, but neither day is the day I want, so I'll almost certainly be flying UA or AC with a connection instead (since I'm in Aeroplan). If the non-stops were on my travel days, it'd be tempting to avoid the connection even though I'm not a regular WS traveler.

Bang on. For example, I have to go to a conference in May (YQR-LAS). WS flies to LAS two days a week, but neither day is the day I want, so I'll almost certainly be flying UA or AC with a connection instead (since I'm in Aeroplan). If the non-stops were on my travel days, it'd be tempting to avoid the connection even though I'm not a regular WS traveler.

If WJ flew to LAS on a daily basis from YQR, their losses would probably end up looking a lot more like AC's as well!

:)

If WJ flew to LAS on a daily basis from YQR, their losses would probably end up looking a lot more like AC's as well!

Heh, probably true.

Regina's a better market than a lot of people think, though. As of this winter we have 39 weekly flights directly to US airports.

We have about 225K in metro Regina and our airport serves 1.2M pax. By comparison, Bismarck, ND, 6 hours south, has 125K metro and their airport serves 200K pax.

Looks like the codeshares with AA are showing up now. I just checked the WJ webpage and MSY is back on the list of destinations. However, you need to fly to Miami and then take a AA flight to MSY.

If WJ flew to LAS on a daily basis from YQR, their losses would probably end up looking a lot more like AC's as well!

:)

Hah! You underestimate how desperate people are to get out of here in the depths of winter... ;)

A daily would likely never work, even if a smaller aircraft could be proven to make economic sense. It would make more sense for WS to be able to route passengers through a western hub and onto AA. UA and Delta have WS beat as they serve the US directly from YQR. Since the UA flights have come on, it would be interesting to see how much they have hit AC's YQR-YYC/YVR-US west coast traffic (not to mention east coast through ORD). I haven't been on a UA CRJ that wasn't filled to the gills--very popular service.

We stayed an extra night in LAS in order to stay on WS (it didn't kill us to spend another night there!) as the non-stop is so convenient. Every UA DEN-YQR flight we've been on has had 5-6 LAS passengers on it.