vancouvertraveller

Who here thinks Westjet will be joining Skyteam in the near future?

FlyerJ

No. Zero chance.

Previous WestJet leadership dismissed the idea of joining any alliance � repeatedly and adamantly. They said they�d only ever do one-on-one relationships (ie code-sharing).

Now, new WestJet leadership wants to transition the airline to being a regionally-focused leisure carrier for vacationers. Not only is that not a fit for SkyTeam (or any alliance), I think that may even put their current level of partnership with Delta at risk.

SkyTeam? Not going to happen.

cirrusdragoon

Regional focused leisure? How so? They have consolidated their international 787 routes from YYC and have plans for Asia and Europe. The have paused acquiring more 787�s to focus on building up their narrowbody fleet. They relaunched AMS year round, announced
new enhanced KE codeshare and now launching a reciprocal codeshare with JAL, I would hardly call that remaining as regional. They are recovering from the pandemic , rebuilding their finances , I would not say their ambitions are over.

Never say never . I still remain of the opinion they will one day they join skyteam within the next 10 years. Strategies always evolve. Just because WS is focusing on leisure right now ,to tap into the market that will garner the most revenue potential, does not mean that once they are back to being profitable, they won�t strive for different revenue streams. Just look at how Alaska Air joined oneworld.

Quote of the century: " we will never fly east of Winnipeg�

Look how well that �never� worked out

FlyerJ

I�m good with �never say never� � but the OP�s question was �in the near future�.

I�m frankly concerned that the Delta JV won�t even happen now. They�ve gone silent on it � after the first attempt was turned down, and both companies said they�d try again.

That was a holdover from the previous CEO - and the new guy seems to be reversing course on everything the previous CEO did and said. (And a Delta JV doesn�t really fit with a primarily-Western-Canadian-regional-holiday airline anyway.)

FlyerJ

Everything the new CEO has said - including his new, long-term strategic plan for WestJet - has said:

- pull back from the east to focus primarily on the west
- pull back from being all-things-to-all-people, and instead focus on being a leisure/vacation carrier
- drive growth largely through growing point-to-point vacation routes, primarily from western Canada, but also from major eastern Canadian cities
- cancel upcoming 787 deliveries, and instead focus on being a 737 carrier (while keeping the existing 787s)

Every press release, PR piece and speech has been focused on (1) largely retracting to the west and (2) focusing on leisure (not business, not inbound tourism) travel.

While business travel is currently soft and will stay soft in the short term, no other North American airline has made such a strategic shift to focusing on leisure.

The only deviation from what they�ve communicated consistently for the past 6 months has been the recent announcement to build the 787 hub at YYC. But that does make business sense as a way for them to keep their small, existing 787 fleet flying profitably.

Sopwith

Over 90% of my flying on WS has been for leisure. The odd time I've done a business trip on WS has been because their schedule suited me better than AC's. For me, WS isn't and has never been a viable option for regular business travel within Canada, and even less so to the US.

As for their regional focus, by consolidating overseas flights out of YYC, the message I take is that they're not interested in my business from YVR. Their focus these days is Alberta centric, which I regard as a regional market. So be it.

My perspective is that WS is now regressing from an airline that was transitioning from adolescence to adulthood a couple of years ago to a less mature regional leisure airline in the future.

cirrusdragoon

Yes of course there will reversals and changes to strategy. Depending on what is required to fix or improve an organizations financial picture from the black swan event of the century. There is always a greater plan or strategy with any corporation and for obvious reasons that just won�t be shared with competitors.

Well just because no other airline has does not mean they won�t be looking at it.

an excerpt:

With the latest studies suggesting that up to 40% of business traffic may not return, United�s fleet growth and business market focus will possibly have to be productive with a large increase in price-sensitive leisure travelers. Being the world�s �biggest and best� airline, as CEO Scott Kirby states with this plan, may require that business travelers will all return to be successful. Not even addressing this challenge brings skepticism to the plan. A corollary with this is the fast growth of lower-cost, leisure focused airlines. With the latest IPOs and startups all focused on leisure travelers, it is this segment of the business that is gaining new investment and growing at rates even faster than United plans to grow. How United will maintain a price premium, needed for their high cost structure, is not obvious.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/benbald...h=2098e5181ea7

On Time Reports

I agree joining SkyTeam is not likely in the near future. Beyond regional destinations in western Canada, WS does not really offer any additional geographic breadth or additional benefits to SkyTeam. The three biggest markets YYC YEG YVR are all served by Delta and other SkyTeam members. Multiple CEOs in the past have explained the cost of joining such an alliance is not worth it to WS - perhaps only one of the few consistent positions that have been carried over from one CEO to the next. While I haven't heard the new CEO echo the same position, neither have I heard him say he's in favour of joining an alliance.

WS is also getting closer with JL and already pretty close with QF - both Oneworld members.

Maybe something equivalent to the Star Alliance connecting partners program would be more suitable for WS.

But I'd say the partnership between DL and WS is very much intact. In the "About Delta Air Lines" section of DL news releases, WestJet is important enough to be the only airline mentioned to be not be a "Core Global Airline Partners". All the other 7 airlines are "Core Global Airline Partners".

tracon

WS website says
"Service to Amsterdam resumes on Sun Nov 13 2022 and ends on Sat Mar 25 2023"


6 months later, it turns out the pandemic didn't really change habits.....

From October 2022 ATW magazine. Which is behind a pay wall.


RETURN OF THE ROAD WARRIOR
Meanwhile, US carriers are also seeing signs of business travel returning at a good clip. �Overall, corporate bookings, if you define it in the strictest, purest sense of corporate bookings, the absolute number of passengers is down versus 2019,� [UnitedSVP-international network and alliances Patrick Quayle] said.
However, business revenue is in line with or higher than revenue in 2019 because of the strength of corporate yields.
Isom said American�s domestic business revenue was broadly 105% �of where we were in 2019.� The performance was driven by small- and medium-sized businesses, he said

As for WS joining Skyteam.
Probably not until WS can provide more lounges.
WS only has one lounge and it's not on the US side of it's operation.

Most airlines rely on leisure traffic to provide frequency for business traffic. A focus on leisure traffic shouldn't be a huge impediment to WS.

tcook052

AFAIK DL doesn't fly ex-YEG at present; KL does but the AMS route is in jeopardy due to Schiphol's capacity cap policy.

hollywoodcory17

WS themselves referred to AMS as year-round at a travel expo they had last month. The S23 schedule hasn't been updated yet so we may see the flights get extended beyond March in the coming weeks. Still waiting on those KL codeshares though.

https://www.travelweek.ca/news/new-a...el-trade-expo/

jashah

I too am waiting for the KL codeshares beyond AMS to become bookable on the WS website. I wonder which KL destinations will be offered?

PHXflier

KLM is making major cuts to its schedules (particularly intra-Europe) in order to help alleviate the incredibly long lines at Schiphol airport due to a lack of security and other personnel. I do not think that KLM is ready to offer anything new until they can fly a normal schedule again.

cirrusdragoon

After reading the interview Ed Sims , (former WS CEO), gave to Forbes, I feel much more confident in my prediction that WS will indeed lean towards just joining skyteam. I agree with all his points.

An excerpt from the interview:

As an industry expert, Sims believes most airlines are achieving these early predictions through significantly higher yields. As a customer in the Australasian market, he is not convinced that price hikes won't suppress demand.

"Airlines are really testing the boundaries of demand elasticity," he said. "My view is not that they are leveraging supply scarcity caused by labor or aircraft shortage, more that they have shareholders who are getting very restless over two to three years of major losses."

Leveraging global partnership beyond connectivity

The crisis of Covid-19 has re-emphasized the requirement for global alliances.

According to Sims, this is especially crucial for the current challenges of the industry's supply chain, which is widely dominated by duopolies� a trend that the pandemic may be reversing.

�Even if we look at sustainable aviation fuels, which is one of the biggest preoccupations that airlines currently have, it's dominated by a duopoly between Shell and Neste,� said Sims.

He argues there is opportunity for aviation alliances to move beyond mere global connectivity as "the means of creating globalization."

�[Duopolies] can be challenged by more powerful global partnerships, using critical mass to push back on the traditional view of geographical location,� he said.

Tight labor markets, skill shortages, and the desperate need for sustainability make the need for global partnerships and globalization an even greater imperative, he said.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/karlmoore/ ... -sims/amp/

It is definitely in WS�s best interests to keep going to global partnerships , if it wasn�t so expensive to be a part of a global alliance , they would have probably already done so a long time ago. The pandemic sure has created a whole new world.

Yet the enhanced codeshare was announced just yesterday?
https://news.paxeditions.com/news/ai...-klm-codeshare

WR Cage

Not only has WestJet backed away from joining Skyteam, now they are pulling out of joint venture with Delta.
https://airlineweekly.com/2023/04/we...joint-venture/