IN PERSON
Westjet Airlines fl ies to over 85 destinations worldwide and codeshares with airlines that include British Airways and Air France – and now agents can book and issue Westjet tickets directly, explains the airline’s Louis Gosselin
Louis Gosselin
What’s the history of WestJet? WestJet was founded in 1996 in Calgary, Alberta, as a Western Canadian regional carrier. We started with three aircraft flying to five cities.
LOUIS GOSSELIN Manager of Business Development, WestJet
And today? Slowly, we expanded to northern and eastern Canada and today 105 Boeing 737 Next Generation aircraft serve destinations in North America, Central America, the Caribbean and Europe. On June 15 we started flying to Dublin, with a daily non-stop flight from St. John’s, Newfoundland. The flying time is just four-and-a-half hours. It’s a good schedule from St. John’s and clients across Canada can connect on non-stop flights from Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary and Halifax. The service will run until to October 25 and I hope we will be back next year with a longer season. I’m not privy to decisions on new
routes but I believe we are also looking at other European destinations, particulalry out of the Maritimes.
"On June 2 WestJet became part of the Billing and Settlement Plan (BSP) in the UK, Ireland, France and Germany. That means agents can now make a reservation and issue a ticket in their GDS"
Do you have the Canada flight network covered? We are still looking at new routes. Last year we created a subsidiary, WestJet Encore. It uses smaller aircraft, Bombardier Q400s, seating up to 78 passengers. These aircraft have the facility to serve more remote cities in Canada, especially in the north, and to put a service between smaller towns. We have an order for 25 of these aircraft (and an option on another 20), which will see our routes expand. Passengers coming from Europe on partner airlines like British Airways, Air France and KLM can connect to major cities and smaller towns in Canada on WestJet by making just one reservation.
16 SUMMER 2014 • SELLING CANADA
You have some exciting news for travel agents? Yes, on June 2 WestJet became part of the Billing and Settlement Plan (BSP) in the UK, Ireland, France and Germany. That means agents can now make a reservation and issue a ticket on WS 838 ticket stock in their GDS. Now, if they encounter any problems when issuing tickets they can contact WestJet directly. WestJet’s codeshare agreement with British Airways, KLM and Air France provides clients with more options to get where they need to be in Canada.
So can UK agents now expect to hear and see more of WestJet? Definitely! Now that we are live in the system we intend to be more active in Europe. We do work closely with the Canadian Tourism Commission and hope to grow our partnership with them. We have more to offer the UK and Irish travel trades and will be working hard to set up different programmes with both. We want to see more programmes coming out of the UK using one of our partners and a WestJet connecting flight.
What level of interest do you get from UK agents? The UK is a big market for WestJet even though we do not fly to the UK. In Europe last year our
sales, generated through Hahn Air, numbered in the millions of dollars, so travel agents and the trade seem to know and like what we offer. Such a level of success is excellent for a small company based in Canada.
You have won several awards for your on-board service. What are you doing differently? I think the WestJet experience is a little different because of the working culture of the airline. The company is owned by its proud employees and WestJet offers them the chance to buy shares. If you hold a stake in the company when you welcome someone onboard it is like welcoming someone to your own house.
And WestJet is quite unusual in that it doesn’t oversell flights? As far as I know we are the only airline in North America that does not oversell our flights. We don’t because we have a very low ‘no-show’ figure. If we are flying a 136-seat aircraft we will sell 136 seats.
What are the key contact details? Email:
lgosselin@westjet.com, or Agency support: inboundcanadasales@w
estjet.
com; Help desk (toll free): 00-800-5381- 569 (open 24 hours a day);
westjet.com/intl.
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