Westjet to land at Laguardia!!
 

8 slots....

WestJet lands access to LaGuardiaAirline poised to take Canadians to the core of the Big Apple

CALGARY, Nov. 23, 2011 /CNW/ - WestJet today announced it has successfully bid for eight slot pairs at New York's LaGuardia airport. A slot pair is defined as one arriving flight and one departing flight.

The auction, held by the U.S. Federal Aviation Authority (FAA), provided select airlines in Canada and the United States the unique opportunity to bid on two slot packages for LaGuardia airport and one for Washington's Ronald Reagan National Airport.

"We are very pleased with our successful bid," said Gregg Saretsky, WestJet President and CEO. "Our growth plans, in which increased business travel in the East figures prominently, includes New York City, Canada's largest international business market and we look forward to providing our guests with frequent, year-round service to the core of the Big Apple.

"This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," continued Gregg Saretsky. "LaGuardia airport is slot controlled and therefore, access is otherwise strictly limited. Our ability to now serve New York demonstrates we are focused on delivering on our business traveller strategy."

WestJet will be working over the next several days to finalize the transaction according to FAA requirements while working to secure U.S. customs pre-clearance from Canada. Details on schedule information will be announced at a later date.

Nice. Considering WestJet has an agreement with Delta, its a really nice way to get to Canada.

Not that I go, but promoting an international carrier @ LGA is a very good use of resources for this airport. Westjet is well run, has alliance with Delta. It just made sense.

I am assuming they will have a significant marketshare.

I find it odd that Wesjet would invest in a LGA presence. Flights there are limited to a 1500 mile perimeter, so that shuts out anything west of YWG (in particular, Westjet's home base at YYC). So they must only be planning on flights from YYZ, but there's already lots of competition in the YYZ/YTZ-NYC market. Perhaps a pre-emptive strike before Porter gets the preclearance facilities necessary at YTZ before it can fly to LGA?

Really?

UA Flt 815, LGA-DEN. 1620 miles.

They are actually trying to get the 1500 mile perimeter ruling changed which could happen in the future. Unclear. But it still makes sense if they have significant traffic for customers between LGA and Canada.

Remember someone had to get the slots and Southwest merged with Airtran so rather than Southwest handling more routes, it went to WestJet which actually contributes with new routes instead of more duplication.

Westjet nabbed some slots at LGA, JetBlue nabbed the other bunch at LGA and DCA slots.

Westjet and JetBlue are both very solid carriers so this is good news for everyone.

DEN is the lone exception to the perimeter rule, as well as Saturdays. So Westjet could conceivably operate YYC-LGA on Saturdays, though I don't really see them doing that.

YYZ, yeah. Maybe YUL, too. But I could also see seasonal or less-than-daily service from YHZ or YOW.
YWG, not so much.

Maybe.

Is the plan to still operate into EWR while doing LGA as well? How efficient is a two airport senario for an airline like WS?

Does the underlined part seem odd to anyone else? Why would WS need to secure US customs pre-clearance from Canada? Wouldn't this be automatic if they were flying from YYZ/YUL/YOW/etc? LGA is obviously one of the airports that can accept pre-cleared flights since AC already flies there from Canada.

Not sure, but maybe it relates to the fact that they would need gates within the Transborder side of the Cdn airports.

The issue is that US customs is at maximum capacity at YYZ during peak times, so they have to agree to increase staff to handle the extra capacity.

I guess a lot of Canadians come to NYC ehhh? :)

Did WS pay the same $72million that B6 did?
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/JetBlu...5.html?x=0&l=1

I read Westjet paid $17m for their 8 slots....and JetBlue paid $32m for their 8 slots. I guess it pays to be runner up because no one airline was allowed both sets of slots.

I don't think Porter has the money to buy slots in LaGuardia and thats obvious because they didnt even bid and even if they ever start making money, unless there is an airline shutdown, I think it will be a long long time before 8 slots get sold again in a package!

These slots came from Delta, and Delta is a codeshare partner of WestJets. I think WestJet and Delta did a deal years ago to help Delta out when they had excess 737-800's after 9/11. I think Delta will be very happy about this and with their position in the market in New York, I think this will work out very well for everyone!

:)

Here's the competition on Toronto-NYC, using Wed. Dec. 14 as an example:

AA to LGA
8 x 63-seat CR7
1 x 37-seat E-135

AC to LGA
8 x 93-seat E-190
4 x 73-seat E-175
1 x 120-seat A319

AC to EWR
7 x 73-seat E-175

CO to EWR
7 x 74-seat Q400
1 x 50-seat E-145

Porter YTZ to EWR
11 x 70-seat Q400

AA to JFK
4 x 63-seat CR7

DL to JFK
3 x 50-seat CRJ

Westjet's fleet: 119-seat 737-600, 136-seat 737-700, 166-seat 737-800

I don't see where Westjet would fit in. Presumably if it were profitable to put bigger planes on the route, the other airlines would have done so. Maybe they're looking outside Toronto. It would be great to get some competition out of YOW, but given that the biggest aircraft we currently get on transborder (non-sun destination) is the occasional UA/US E-170, I'm not optimistic.