So? My point was that WJ is more like AC than like WN. The list is entirely in terms of comparison with AC - and not with WN. It would be nice to operate exactly as the most successful US airiline does, and to whom WJ claims to be in a partnership, not as an AC with intentions to do better in some areas (but not to compete widely).
I disagree that they should "operate exactly" as Southwest, and evidently WestJet agrees with me. Here's a quote from Sean Durfy.
"The model for Southwest works in the United States still. Southwest has 18 per cent of the market share in the United States. They're the largest airline in the world. They will move about 110 million people on 560 planes. Wow! And they only have 18 per cent of the market. You know, our situation is a little different. If you look at this month, we have 40 per cent of the domestic market. We have 76 aircraft. You know, it's different. Our environment and our market are different. Southwest has these huge centres that they fly a lot of point-to-point traffic. We don't. We have network flow. We've got a very limited number of large cities in Canada. So we have to flow our aircraft across the country. Our geography makes it such that our network plan is quite a bit different than anybody else's; because, as you know, 85 per cent of all the people in Canada are stretched along 100 miles of that border, right? So the geographic disbursement is kind of ugly. So the model in itself has to be different. So then to change a little bit more – as long as you don't really screw with the fundamentals, and our fundamentals really are: low cost structure, a tremendous culture and a great guest experience, right? So those three are darned important to us."
From:
http://business.theglobeandmail.com/...mooredurfy0428