In Maclean’s Business Blog I was informed on West Jet’s recent plan of offering international flights, mainly to Europe. They plan on “connecting Canadians to the world while bringing the world to Canada” allowing customers access to low cost flights to more than 100 cities in Europe. While it does seem almost necessary for an airline company to eventually fly internationally, I’m not sure if it’s such a good idea. First of all, the airline industry is a rare one in the sense that economically, it is extremely close to having perfect competition. This is a disadvantage because it is almost impossible for West Jet to create a substantial PoD- leaving it with huge amounts of competition in the international flight market. Second, is that West Jet is already known as an airline that provides customers with consistent low cost flights using Boeing 737 aircrafts. If West Jet wants to compete in this new market, it must first spend huge amounts of money on new aircrafts such as 767s and 787s as well as all the maintenance and luxuries that come with them. It is true that the actual airplanes themselves are fixed costs and would seem to be less significant in the long run, but are tons of variable costs that come with them such as fuel that will be extremely hard to pay off.