The two airlines in direct competition to WestJet we will be focusing on are: Air Canada and American Airlines. Air Canada is the largest operating airline in Canada and this fact alone proves to be WestJet’s largest challenge. Air Canada flies to over 178 destinations compared to WestJet’s, 91. While varied, WestJet planes are also limited to flights in the North America region and not overseas. American Airlines, like Air Canada, is the largest passenger airline operating in the US. They are a part of the Oneworld airline alliance and coordinate with British Airways and Finnair. This section will analyze the key strengths and weakness of the competitors and compare them to those of WestJet. Air Canada’s strengths revolve around their volume and options available to Canadian fliers. They offer an extensive amount of flights within the country and also have five subsidiary brands: Air Canada Cargo, Air Canada Vacations, Air Canada Rouge, Air Canada Express, and Air Canada Jetz for the business segment. Through sheer mass in numbers, Air Canada appears to be most of the Canadian market’s “obvious choice.” Furthermore, Air Canada had more revenue in the year of 2012 than Westjet reaching almost $10 Billion compared to $3.4 Billion. Air Canada on average provides approximately 1,520 daily scheduled flights with 35 million passengers. They have more than …show more content…
The operating Boeing 767, 777, 787, and Airbus 330 from Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, and Calgary has an average age of 13.6 years old. WestJet’s fleet on the other hand has an average age of 6.7 years old. There is no doubt that Air Canada is a well known brand in Canada, however a second weakness to be noted is they have low brand affinity. Due to the constant media attention towards labor disputes and cutbacks, customers have a higher probability to choose a substitute carrier. These two weaknesses cause continuous drawbacks for Air Canada