Originally Posted by
Shareholder
Lots of once or twice a week flights between winter tourist destinations and secondary cities over the weekends to scoop up business charters otherwise get. But imagine the possibilities if WS has a small fleet of Embraers or CRAs and could actually consider Canada's dozens of tertiary cities (no derogatory implication made). There is a whole tier of cities that cannot support daily 737s but could handle at least one 75-90 seater in each direction. That was the logic of JetBlue's decision to adopt a second fleet type with less capacity than its mainstay A320s.
The other thing to consider with this is frequency... Business travel needs more than one flight a day. They want to get in in the morning, out in the evening, and heck, if there is an earlier flight, they will take it.
So even if these cities *can* handle a 737, there is a much better for the higher
yielding business traveller to switch over from Jazz if there is more frequency.
This is what a smaller fleet of props (Q400s) or ERJ/CRJs would give WS.
Of course, that does add cost. I think eventually as all the low hanging fruit domestically is picked, WS will seriously have to look at options such as this, either themselves or with a partner airline.
The existing use of extra capacity to scoop sun flyers in the winter is nice, but you are not going to get rich underpricing charters....
-Brian