WestJet no longer needs the rest of the Boeing 787 Dreamliners ordered

“We recently received our seventh Dreamliner, and that’s all for now. We have canceled the other three planes, as Boeing has major delivery problems. Instead, we bought a large number of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft,” says Pen.

Focus on Calgary
In early October, WestJet announced it would soon concentrate all Boeing 787 flights to Calgary. “So far we have flown the Dreamliner from Calgary, Vancouver and Toronto. This means that we also have pilots, cabin crew and technicians stationed there. The market is constantly changing and we have come to the conclusion that it is more efficient to concentrate our 787s in one place. This means we will soon be able to offer many more destinations away from Calgary. Travelers from, for example, Vancouver, Edmonton and Winnipeg can take a domestic flight to Calgary and then transfer to Amsterdam, Paris, Dublin, Rome and London. We’ll be announcing what the whole network will look like soon.”

Extra MAX’en
WestJet recently announced the purchase of dozens more Boeing 737 MAX aircraft. “We are always optimizing our fleet. We recently said goodbye to the latest Boeing 737-600 and more MAX 8s have been added. As a result, we are not only flying more economically, but also more efficiently, as we now have more seats per plane. At the end of September we announced a large order for the MAX 10, of which we have ordered 42 with an option for another 22”.

What will WestJet do with all those planes? “On the one hand, the new MAX 8 and 10 replace older devices, but we have also set ourselves the goal of growing significantly – five to six percent annually. Depending on the demand, it can be a little more or less. MAX planes are economical and efficient and we can use them for flights within Canada, to the sunny south or even across the ocean to Europe.”

Read the full interview with Diederik Pen in November edition from Aviation News Magazine.