WestJet is making a significant expansion of its routes between Alberta’s capital and destinations in the U.S. and Canada, and for the first time is adding a flight crew hub in the city.
WestJet adds 150-person crew hub in Edmonton
Until now, the airline has had three crew bases in Canada: Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto.
“We are now adding a fourth one, which basically shows how important Edmonton is for WestJet,” said WestJet Group CEO Alexis von Hoensbroech.
“This allows us to create a more reliable, more stable network because crews don’t have to commute in.
“They basically start and end the day in Edmonton and it creates jobs for Edmonton, which is also good.”
Hoensbroech said to start, by May of this year the airline will have added 150 crew jobs based out of the Edmonton International Airport: 50 pilots and 100 in-flight cabin crew.
“We are here to stay and we are here to grow.
“We would not set up a crew base if our ambition wouldn’t be to would grow beyond what we are currently planning for the summer.”
Two years after cancelling orders for 15 Boeing 737 Max aircraft amid an industry-wide downturn in aviation, Hoensbroech said on Monday WestJet now has orders into Boeing for 65 of the planes and the option to purchase another 22 over the next five years.
“That’s a lot of capacity to be deployed and the fact that we put up a crew base here in Edmonton means there’s more to come,” Hoensbroech said.
“Of course, provided that the expansion that we’re doing is profitable, which we of course expect it to be.”
2 new Edmonton-U.S. routes, more domestic flights this summer
The Calgary-based airline said service out of the Edmonton International Airport will increase by almost 50 per cent this summer, when compared with 2022.
“That’s the largest year-on-year growth that we have in any place in Canada,” Hoensbroech said, noting that their average growth is 30 per cent across the country.
“This is very, very significant.”
WestJet held a large news conference in downtown Edmonton to announce the summer schedule and crew hub, saying it’s adding new non-stop service from YEG to Minneapolis and Seattle.
Those mid-morning fights will depart five times a week out of Edmonton. Flights to Seattle begin May 19, and the route to Minneapolis starts June 2.
WestJet also announced new routes to London, Ont., Moncton, N.B. (both twice weekly) and Charlottetown (once a week) and is resuming non-stop service to Ottawa (six times weekly) and Montreal (twice weekly), as well as twice-a-week flights to Nanaimo (year-round) and Penticton, B.C.
The resumed flights last operated out of Edmonton in 2021. Each route has different dates to start back up, from the end of April to the beginning of July.
Edmonton Mayor Amarjeet Sohi said the city’s airport hasn’t always received its fair share of direct flights in the past, adding that the eight new routes announced Monday will serve businesses and families well.
“It allows businesses from different cities to connect with Edmonton, Edmonton businesses to connect with other cities and less time wasted,” Sohi said. “Also allows families to be spending more time together instead of just spending time at the airport.
“This renewed commitment really speaks to that need.”
Some of the WestJet flights are converted from routes its ultra-low-cost subsidiary Swoop was flying.
“Some routes are new, some routes are reinstated routes that we had been flying pre-pandemic, and some had been served by Swoop and they are now being served by Westjet,” Hoensbroech said.
“We have now decided that we will do more WestJet out of Edmonton, which serves the needs of the market.”
Overall, WestJet said it will serve 21 domestic and four transborder destinations from Alberta’s capital this summer.
Myron Keehn, president and CEO of the Edmonton International Airport, said that makes the airline the largest carrier operating out of YEG.
He said come this summer, there will be more than 100 daily WestJet flights.
“That is substantial, compared to, if you go back two years, we had maybe five flights a day,” Keehn said, referring to when international border closures all but shut down the airline industry at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Having 100 flights a day in and out of Edmonton in the summer (is) critical. Connectivity in our region is important — important for you to visit family and friends, important for you to be able to connect your business and move cargo and goods and to attract investment.”
Not all of the routes will operate year-round: WestJet said it runs more cross-Canada flights in the summer, and in the winter more routes to warmer destinations down south.
The airline said Monday’s announcement is the single largest expansion of WestJet’s network serving Edmonton in history and the airport noted that doesn’t just benefit the people filling the seats.
“Every one of these flights also has cargo in the bottom of the belly,” Keehn said.
“So really, these flights are great for tourism — but they’re also great from a business perspective.”
Last summer WestJet refocused its routes and shifted resources to grow its presence in Western Canada.
On Monday, the airline said the new Edmonton routes further strengthen its east-to-west connectivity.
Westjet, pilots still working on new collective agreement
The news of the expansion comes as the airline and the union representing its pilots remain at an impasse over contract talks.
The pilots’ first union contract, which expired at the end of 2022, was the result of an arbitrated settlement reached in 2018.
The WestJet Master Executive Council, represented by the Air Line Pilots Association, International (ALPA), said last week it has filed a request for conciliation assistance with the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service.
ALPA represents approximately 1,800 pilots at WestJet and Swoop.
Hoensbroech said on Monday that the two sides have been negotiating since the beginning of September 2022 and asking for a government conciliator is not out of the ordinary.
“We came to a point where we agree on some, but we also disagree on many other points. I think this is a pretty normal thing in the bargaining process.”
Once a conciliation officer is appointed before the end of February, they will work with the parties for 60 days to reach an agreement.
If both parties remain at an impasse following this period, a 21-day cooling-off period begins before the parties can consider other alternatives, including a strike or lockout.
“Of course, it has to be an agreement that makes sense for our valued pilots, but also for the competitiveness of our company,” Hoensbroech said.
Calgary-based WestJet launched in 1996 with three planes, 250 employees and five destinations.
It now has more than 180 aircraft, 14,000 employees and more than 110 destinations in 24 countries.
— with files from The Canadian Press
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