West Jet plans to test out the transatlantic market next spring with flights from St. John’s and Dublin. This adds increasing pressure towards Air Canada as West Jet now becomes a competitor to them for the European travel market. West Jet claims that From Dublin, guests can access low costs flights to over 100 cities in Europe.

The only problem with this is West Jet only offers a direct flight to Dublin from Toronto. Cities like Vancouver, Montreal, and Calgary would need to connect in St. John’s. This adds a lack of convenience amongst some customers and would cause them to take their services to other competitors.

In addition, West Jet does not offer the Boeing 767 or 787, but instead are known for their massive fleet of Boeing 737’s. This being the case, experts say West Jet would need to acquire some of the wider bodied 767’s to accommodate for the European flights.

The era of the low cost but efficient West Jet carriers may be coming to a close in the near future as they try to expand into the world wide market. But can they overtake Air Canada?

Chris Sorenson’s blog for Maclean’s: http://www2.macleans.ca/2013/11/15/westjet-bound-for-europe/

Pictures: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/westjet-to-go-transatlantic-with-flights-to-dublin-1.2427850