preview

Conducting Business Ethically and Responsibly: Westjet

Better Essays

INTRODUCTION
Westjet came into the air travel business in 1996, offering fares up to 50% cheaper than there competition. They strived for an excellent relationship between the employee and the employer by creating an ecstatic, friendly work environment. Westjet is one of the most successful airlines as it did start out with the most start up capital any airline has ever experienced, as well as keeping their debt to a minimum. With such commercial success, Westjet was questioned with their actions towards Air Canada as one of the founders employed a travel agent to find out certain information about Air Canada which gave them a competitive advantage so they knew exactly what price would be a noticeable difference, which would attract …show more content…

West Jet managed to keep their debt to a minimum, even though they purchased its own well-used jets rather than lease new ones. Commercial flight operations began with three planes on February 29, 1996. Vancouver, Kelowna, Calgary, Edmonton, and Winnipeg were the first cities served and many more cities were added within the first year of operation (Jarvis, 2006). West Jet 's fares were often more than 50 percent less than its competition. However; services such as digital tickets, in-flight meals, frequent flier program, airport lounges, different flying classes, computer reservation systems used by travel agents were not offered. This business plan worked very well as consumers were primarily price driven and it resulted in a profit of 2.5 million in the first six months of operation. Not all was well in 1996, Canadian transport officials found West Jet 's maintenance record-keeping program inadequate and forced them to suspend operations. The suspension lasted 17 days, costing them $300,000 a day and stranding many passengers (Jarvis, 2006). However West Jet recovered quickly, in its first fiscal year they produced a profit of $36.7 million in revenues and they carried over 760,000 passengers. West Jet began operating charters in October 1997. There first client was a major tour operator which resulted in

Get Access