WestJet delays plane orders

[ScudRunner]

WestJet delays plane orders

Calgary-based WestJet Airlines said Thursday it was putting three new airplane orders on hold until the strength of the economic recovery becomes clearer.

"In light of the recent contradictory indications to a full economic recovery … we have re-evaluated our short-term capacity growth plans to ensure our capacity is well matched to anticipated demand," WestJet president and CEO Gregg Saretsky told analysts.

The Canadian economy needs to rebound further before it can support more new domestic capacity growth, he said.

WestJet has arranged with its partner Boeing to push back one aircraft delivery scheduled for 2011 and two deliveries scheduled for 2012 to 2017.

The announcement came the same day WestJet reported a second-quarter profit of $21 million, more than double what it made in the same period a year earlier.

That amounted to 14 cents per share, compared with a profit of $9.2 million or seven cents per share.

Revenue was $612.1 million, up by 15 per cent from $531.2 million.

With files from The Canadian Press

http://news.ca.msn.com/local/calgary/ar ... d=25105892

[CanadaEH]

Not to be picky but this belongs in the WestJet forum.

[flyincanuck]

Dude!

Description for "General Airline Industry Comments" Discuss topics relating to airlines

I think it's a good fit. Carry on.

[wjawannabe]

Can anyone "in the know" comment on how this decision will impact hiring? Obviously a bit less, but numbers and timelines? Just trying to reconcile the news with the previous reports of fleet numbers and a/c orders.

Thanks!

[Tiny Voices]

A bit less perhaps, but hiring is very much driven by the number of hours that marketing has planned for the aircraft that are on property. We will still be taking, I believe, six aircraft next year, and five the year after. Hiring will have to be done for those deliveries, and with more and more southern flying, delaying 3 aircraft over the course of two years may not have that much of an affect on hiring.

[UKPilot]

At what level does WestJet crew their aircraft? One lowcost airline I worked for crewed at 5.5 per seat. Just wondering if six aircraft next year means about 66 new hires as well?

[canuckjetsetter]

At what level does WestJet crew their aircraft?

WS staffs approximately 30 crew members for each aircraft. Some are part-time but the majority are full-time.

http://watch.bnn.ca/market-morning/augu ... clip333313

[stickontheice]

Not sure what the big deal about this is. We're taking 11 out the 14 original orders and the other 3 are to be taken in 2017. For what I understood hiring was also driven on the block hours of the airplanes we have now and are going to get. I'm not positive but I think the impact will be small.