Originally Posted by
Hypnotize
2013 is a significant and defining year for WestJet. We're adding fare bundling, premium economy, launching a regional airline (Encore), and much much more. Even still,Ii strongly disagree with the notion that it's a culture shift or that this will change the culture of WestJet.
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.