Uncomfirmed: WestJet Three-Tier Fare Structure

Not that I know of.

http://www.canoe.ca/Travel/TipsTrend.../20406951.html

WestJet Airlines Ltd will use technological innovation, including a new reservation system, to help it transform from a no-frills carrier to a lower-cost full-service airline courting lucrative corporate travellers, its chief executive said.

Canada's second-biggest airline plans to launch a series of technology systems, most notably the new reservation system, which will sell three tiers of tickets, in the next two months.

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The new Internet booking system, which WestJet hopes to launch in late January, will sell economy, mid-tier and premium tickets. That is a major shift from its current system, which sells only the lowest-priced ticket available.


Economy tickets under the new system will continue to sell the lowest available fare, but the cancellation fee for them will jump to $75 from $50. Mid-tier tickets will have a $50 cancellation fee.

Premium tickets, unavailable until late March when WestJet finishes reconfiguring its 100 Boeing 737 planes to allow more leg room, will include priority screening and boarding, free cancellations and flexibility on ticket changes.

Pricing for those tickets, which may include free meals and drinks and an extra baggage allowance, has not yet been determined. Fares will be well below half the price for business class at WestJet's bigger competitor, Air Canada, Saretsky said.

Agreed - although arguably most passengers don't think.

Overtime the implementation of fare bundling, Encore, and premium economy will have an impact on WestJet culture. Basically the new service offerings will change how Westjet Owners interact with guests and how accomodation is provided. Specific illistrative examples.

(1) Legacy Westjet culture would give away exit rows and bulkheads to tall people. Currently this is somewhat restricted via implementation of paid seat assignment. Go forward with premium economy, I suspect that CSAs will be further restricted and at a minimum monitored for instances where PE is given away for free. FAs will also have to monitor the PE cabin for seat poachers and restrict access to the PE seats to only those who have paid for the privilege. Tall people will have to pay to get more legroom.

(2) IF the mid tier fare bundle includes free seat assignment, this will likekly dramatically increase the number of pax with assigned seats prior to 24hour OLCI window. Traditionally families and other budget travellers have relied on WS low percentage of paid seat assignment to obtain free seat assignments (not withstanding the 48hour bot that allocates seats PNR with greater than 3 passengers). IF the percentage of paid seat assignements gets north of 50%, Westjet CSA and FAs will be hard pressed to get families seated together. This is a current problem with AC whereby families book tango and the biz flyers with T+ book up all the aisles plus most of the windows, leaving the family scattered throughout the cabin.

(3) A significant increase in international codeshare pax will result in IRROPS days with signficantly higher oversell, especially in YVR where late inbound codeshares could result in 20-40 oversell factors. The general public complains about AC overselling seats, however AC will only oversell domestic Y in the single digits, a large number of standby pax is the result of missconnects.

My point, each of the new service/product offerings significantly increases the complexity of legacy WS experience and operations of the airline. The culture of WS will have to change inorder to handle the increased complexity. Further, the new offerings will restrict WS ability to empower employees to satisfy customers expectations.

I agree with what your points, but have a slightly different take. IMHO one of the things that passengers perceive is that all WS pax are treated equally. There is no business class, priority boarding, everyone gets the same number of free checked bags, etc. IMHO the fact that WS will start differentiating between pax represents a major culture shift (as perceived by customers). This stragegy could very well attract status/business pax from AC but risks alienating WS's base customers.

Although this move seems to be targeted to lure AC's business travellers, I wonder if AC might actually be looking forward to WS implementing these changes. For example, if the "bare bones" price means that there is no free baggage allowance on WS (domestic or transborder), I can see AC starting to charge for bags on their Tango fares. Services sold for AC's Tango, Tango Plus and Latitude would probably align somewhat with WS's Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 fares.

Here it is:

Econo
One free bag
$75 change/cancel fees

Flex
One free bag
Ability to pay extra for premium economy seats
$50 change/cancel fees

Plus
Two free bags
Complimentary seat selection
No change fees
$50 cancellation fee
Priority screening

Sample fares (YYC-YYZ)
Econo: $229
Flex: $249
Plus: $496

The new site will also have multi-city reservations...

Page 41: http://www.westjet.com/pdf/investorM...day-121204.pdf

Thank you for the link, it was a great read!

However, I think that the prices shown are mockups. Who would pay $20 in advance to save eventually $25 on changing and booking fees and to be allowed to spend extra $$ for a better seat?

So but for the 800's the total seat count remains the same but with E+ so all the space for those seats come at the expenses of regular E seats.

There should be some space saving due to new, thinner seats as well. How much is actually going to be lost inbetween seats I dunno.

Currently, my knees already touch the seat in front of me when I sit in a normal row. That is without me putting stuff in the seat pocket. And I'm of average height.

Hmm. I'm 6'1 and never had that problem on WS.

Maybe you are thinking of Royal who used to do 29" seat pitch, or Canjet or Skyservice who are about 30"?

I wouldn't worry about the seat pitch on Skyservice as it ceased operations in March 2010.

I'm less than that, but maybe I have a longer femur? Or a huge .... Dunno.

I guess it also depends on the seat row. 11E was OK (well, it is an exit row, eh), next flight 17E was bad.

Oh boy, you can't say a three-letter-word for donkey in this forum without getting censored. How silly.

They say it in church over and over, this time of the year, you know.

Air NZ has similar pricing. They call it grab a seat ( no luggage), seat and bag ( 1bag included) and works ( meal/snatch & bag)

Snatch? Oh my!