A couple of key statements he makes indicate the 789s are likely to stay for European routes and the strategy is more a strengthening of the West routes as opposed to retraction from the East (although Sunwing and Swoop will undoubtedly be a key part of that strategy):
‘But WestJet will not simply cede the east to its rivals. In a few years, the company hopes to transport more passengers from the east than it does today.“We will fly them to different destinations. We won’t fly them from Toronto to Montreal but we’ll fly them from Toronto to, for example, Montego Bay.”
Von Hoensbroech notes that the Canadian market has two distinct and complementary travel seasons – east-west during the northern hemisphere’s summer, and north-south during the winter – enabling maximum fleet utilisation and flexibility.
“You can send aircraft to Europe in summer, where there’s always enough capacity to fill them in a decent way, and you still have a really nice season to deploy them in winter to the Caribbean, Mexico and Hawaii,” he says.’