WestJet chopping employment and slashing flight potential by 1/3



WestJet is slashing routes and reducing its work force because of what it calls 'instability in the face of continuing federal government travel advisories and restrictions' related to the pandemic.


© Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press
WestJet is slashing routes and lowering its work drive since of what it phone calls ‘instability in the encounter of continuing federal government vacation advisories and restrictions’ similar to the pandemic.

WestJet is cutting jobs and slashing its flight capacity by a third mainly because of what the airline calls “instability in the confront of continuing federal governing administration travel advisories and restrictions.”

The Calgary-centered airline claimed in a launch Friday that up to 1,000 of its staff will be impacted by “furloughs, short-term layoffs, unpaid leaves and lowered hrs.”

Ottawa recently modified the rules to call for everyone coming into Canada to have a adverse COVID-19 take a look at in order to be permitted into the region. As before long as that happened, WestJet CEO Ed Sims said the airline saw “significant reductions in new bookings and unprecedented cancellations.”

The airline lobbied the governing administration to alter or delay implementation of the new policies, but Ottawa in the long run went forward with them as planned.

“The full travel field and its customers are yet again on the obtaining conclusion of incoherent and inconsistent govt coverage,” Sims said.

“We have advocated in excess of the previous 10 months for a co-ordinated testing regime on Canadian soil, but this hasty new measure is producing Canadian travellers needless worry and confusion and may possibly make vacation unaffordable, unfeasible and inaccessible for Canadians for yrs to come.”

CUPE, the union that signifies WestJet’s team, informed CBC News in a assertion Friday that 175 flight attendants at the major airline will be laid off, and an supplemental 24 extra at Swoop, their discounted carrier. The persons in each teams were being initially laid off in April just before staying recalled above the summertime, and are now currently being laid off for a next time in the course of the pandemic.

Calgary-primarily based unbiased airline analyst Rick Erickson, who does not have a small business partnership with WestJet, says the shift does not come as a shock.

“With these new COVID assessments essential of all arriving travellers, and just how really rapidly they rolled that out, it wasn’t as though they they gave the air carriers or the sector itself much lead on this,” he stated.

Authorities packages these types of as the wage subsidy have aided airways like WestJet, but compared to other international locations, he said the federal authorities has done noticeably less for the sector. He expects a lot more cuts to come except a thing dramatic modifications.

“I am expecting the other shoe to drop, an Air Canada 1, and I think it will be a loud bang when it hits the ground [because] they’ll be each individual bit as significantly impacted in the similar way that WestJet has been.”

About 230 weekly departures minimize

In addition to the position cuts, the airline is also slashing about 30 for every cent of its flights for February and March. That features cutting its variety of global flights from 100 this time very last 12 months to just 5 now.

About 230 weekly departures have been minimize, together with about 160 domestic routes. About a dozen generally permanent flights to sunny locations out of Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver have been minimize, and seasonal services to the following destinations has also been lower:

  • Antigua. 
  • Aruba. 
  • Barbados. 
  • The Caribbean island of Bonaire. 
  • Huatulco, Mazatlán and Ixtapa, Mexico.
  • London, Gatwick. 
  • Nassau, Bahamas.
  • Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago.
  • San Jose, Costa Rica. 
  • Tampa, Fla.
  • Turks and Caicos.

The flight reductions mean the airline will only have about 150 flights per day. That’s about what WestJet had in June of 2001.

The cuts arrive on the heels of the airline’s choice declared in October to shut down pretty much all of its functions in Atlantic Canada.