Westjet - Product and Services

“Air Transat is Canada’s leading holiday travel airline. Every year, it carries some 3 million passengers to nearly 60 destinations in 25 countries aboard its fleet of Airbus wide-body jets. The company employs approximately 2,000 people. Air Transat is a business unit of Transat A.T. Inc., an integrated international tour operator with more than 60 destination countries and that distributes products in over 50 countries. Air Transat was named World’s Best Leisure Airline at the Skytrax annual World Airline Awards, held in

WestJet made few big investments with cash money to buy one Aircraft and other property and equipment and intangible assets. In 2012, WestJet invested more cash to reinvest in the business rather than keeping in hand than 2011. In 2011 the total money spent for reinvestment was $118,373 and in 2012 it was $269,307 which is more than table compared to 2011. Seeing this investment, it can be said the company got more aggressive in investment compared to 2011.

WestJet Airline was founded in 1996 by Clive Beddoe and a team WestJet airlines were started with the philosophy that just because you pay less doesn’t mean you should get less.

Air Canada is Canada 's largest full-service airline and the largest provider of scheduled passenger services in the Canadian market, the Canada-U.S. trans-border market and in the international market to and from Canada. In 2010, Air Canada improved its reputation as one of the world’s leading international air carriers. Significant progress was made on executing and delivering on its four key priorities and this, coupled with improving economic conditions, allowed Air Canada to record operating income of $407 million in 2010, a $677 million improvement from 2009. Air Canada’s financial strategy is to continue to improve both the level and sustainability of its

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

WestJet is a Canadian low-cost carrier, which was founded in 1996 and headquartered in Calgary, Alberta. WestJet is Canada’s second largest airline with high per cent of the domestic market. It provides scheduled and charter air service to 86 destinations in Canada, the United States, Mexico, the Caribbean and Central America. WestJet operates an average of 425 flights and carrying over 45,000 passengers per day. In 2012, WestJet carried 17,453,352 passengers, making it the ninth-largest airline in North America by passengers carried.One of WestJet’s main values is to be positive, passionate and entertaining in everything they do which make them different from any different airlines.

The airline industry rides a train that is propelled by many different factors, such as the state of the economy, jet fuel prices, people’s view of the industry itself and the image of the individual airline entity. Founded by Clive Beddoe, Don Bell, Mark Hill and Tim Morgan, WestJet has been riding a different train from the get-go since its inauguration in 1996,. Nobody would have thought that a bottom-up management structure in an airline business would work so well. The culture that they have built is now part of their brand and they are proud of it.

WestJet develop their IT operation early and force them get the lead in the aviation businesses. However, as the global economic and the change of people’s demand, the strategic plan of WestJet need to be change to follow the change of the world. Compare with other aviation business, the IT structure of WestJet is small and keeps running on their pervious operation before Smith join into the organization. There are some risks coming out if WestJet continue these IT operations.

For instance, Canada's federal government has delegated the responsibility for airports to local authorities. As a result, many Canadian airports have transformed into brighter, cleaner, and more modern facilities that have become more expensive to operate 3. Canada’s airports have spent more than $9.5 billion on improvements since 19922. According to the CEO of Transat A.T. Inc, “it costs three times as much for an airline to land in Pearson Airport in Toronto as at Charles-de-Gaulle in Paris” 2. Such high landing fees have made Pearson and other major Canadian airports less desirable landing destinations; increasing costs for airlines, and as a result, often increasing prices for consumers. Pearson Airport is West Jet’s “second-largest hub and main connection point in Eastern Canada” and almost half of its destinations are to Canadian airports2, Such high costs of landing in major Canadian cities require that WestJet finds more ways to cut costs and remain the cost leader in its industry.

WestJet operates in a non-union environment which means they have lower labour costs and a relatively low risk of labour disputes.

Westjet Airlines has achieved considerable success in the past few years, winning estimable rewards related to its service, gaining loyal customers and, of course, increasing market shares. It devotes to a “high-value, low-fare airline” which provides humanized services to customers. Another pride of Westjet is its IT, which designs all systems in-house and is operated based on the business demands.

The major strength of this assessment is that Cheryl was able to identify the issues that are key for WestJet to maximize and align IT with the business strategy as well as to add value to the company. Furthermore, Cheryl has started to act and take wise decisions without letting herself to feel overwhelm by the situation or by other person’s decision so she can have a clear picture of the business as well as the impact of its actions. A clear example of this situation was her decision to stop the PMO recommended by IBM. Also, she has focus on managing and improving current IT processes performances, adding tangible value to the organization Additionally, the actions proposed by Cheryl have the goal to update and upgrade IT according to the challenges of the industry in order to take WestJet into a higher level, moving people out of their comfort zone so they can increase their contribution to the company’s strategy. Besides, she found out that the IT group has excellent technical

Launched just 8 years ago, today, the Jetstar Group consists of a network of value-based air carriers that deliver high quality air passenger services for budget-minded travelers across Australia, New Zealand and the Asia Pacific region. Beginning with just 400 employees, the company currently employs more than 7,000 people and carries about 20 million passengers a year. To gain some insights into how the Jetstar Group achieved this impressive growth in such a short amount of time, this paper provides a review of the relevant literature concerning the air passenger industry in general and the business strategy used by the Jetstar Group in particular. A summary of the research and recommendations for this company are provided in the paper's conclusion.

The airline industry has always been a fiercely competitive sector. Since the invention of low-cost carriers, also known as no-frills or

There have been few inventions to change how people live and experience the world considerably as the creation of the airplane. Today, traveling by air has become the norm and it would be difficult to imagine life without it. Air travel has improved the way people are able to conduct business by shortening travel time and changing their thought of distance. The companies within the airline industry exist in a very competitive market. One of those companies, Southwest Airlines, features low-fare, no-frills air service with frequent flights of mostly short routes. Costs are kept down by the exclusive use of Boeing 737 aircraft, which allows for low maintenance costs and quicker turnaround times for flights, and by an emphasis on ticketless travel (Encyclopedia Britannica). This paper will address two segments of the general environment and how they affect Southwest and the airline industry; evaluate how Southwest has addressed two forces of competition; predict what Southwest might do to improve its ability to addresses these forces; assess the external threats affecting Southwest; discuss Southwest’s greatest strengths and most significant weaknesses; determine Southwest’s resources, capabilities, and core competencies; and analyze their value chain.