Summary
- Five routes were previously served, but two are brand-new: Calgary-Keflavik and Halifax-Edinburgh.
- Calgary-Edinburgh will see a rise in flights next summer resulting from its evidently successful first season.
- Calgary-London Gatwick has been cut, but WestJet will proceed to serve Heathrow from the Alberta airport.
WestJet has added seven Boeing 737 MAX 8 routes from Canada to Europe. Eleven months ago, the airline’s Business Strategy Director was extolling the virtues of cutting all non-Calgary long-haul flying to think about its primary hub to stabilize, focus, and develop. No more. It comes because the carrier applies for slots to serve Lisbon next summer, however the highly congested Portuguese capital is renowned for an absence of slots.
Seven European routes are coming
While more may follow, they’re detailed below and are bookable. Using Cirium to look at schedules shows that WestJet previously served five, most in summer 2022, after which it decided to think about Calgary. They’re easy resumptions that weren’t previously expected to return.
Image: GCMap
They arrive amid other changes
Calgary-Edinburgh, introduced in May 2023, will rise to 4 weekly Boeing 787-9 flights next summer, up from three in 2023. Evidently, the summer-seasonal route – which had never been served before – performed sufficiently well to be expanded.
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Based on UK CAA data, it carried 34,518 roundtrip passengers between May and September. Cirium indicates 37,760 seats were on the market, meaning a high average seat load factor of 91.4%. As you’d expect, it was greatly helped by July and August (95%+). In fact, the query, as ever, is the SLF is achieved.
Source: UK CAA. Figure: James Pearson
It just isn’t all excellent news. Calgary-London Gatwick, which launched in May 2016 when WestJet used 767-300ERs, has been cut. It operated every day this summer, with its Calgary-London operation now ‘only’ being to Heathrow.
But for Halifax and St John’s relaunch, WestJet would have exited Gatwick to consolidate on the UK’s busiest airport. It’s logical to conclude that it will probably serve only Heathrow if it could gain more slots for its other routes.
What do you make of all of it? Tell us within the comments section.