Next spring WestJet is planning to start operating flights from St. John’s Canada to Dublin Ireland. This would further ramp up competition with rival Air Canada. By connecting to Dublin, passengers could then take advantage of the many low cost airlines operating in Europe, such as Ryanair that has its hub in Dublin. Passengers could also rent cars once in Europe and continue their travel by car. Flying to Europe would also increase the flow of international passengers who are planning to come to Canada and once in St. John’s they could further their travel on board WestJet to any point in Canada.

Flying to Europe however can present many challenges to the company, which WestJet is not prepared to deal with. For example the fact that the airline would be flying from St. John’s and not from the major canadian cities could push passengers off and at the end they would still choose to use major international airlines like Air Canada. The airline would also have to purchase larger airlines in order to become competitive in the market. However passengers who are not in hurry and care about the price tag would most likely use WestJet since it is more affordable.

Blog by Chris Sorensen: http://www2.macleans.ca/2013/11/15/westjet-bound-for-europe/

When the flight’s safety video comes on, usually people do anything but watch the video. That is the reason why Virgin America Airline Group has launched its new video in the hope of getting people to watch and pay attention to the safety tips provided. Having a video of that sort however can both have its positive and negative aspects.

Yes the video is entertaining and if I was a customer on board that airline I would most defiantly pay more attention to the safety tips provided. Th reason for that is because the video is catchy and intertwining, which I think does not occur often on other onboard safety video. However the video can also have its negative sides. People watching the video might miss out on the idea of why the video is there in the first place. They might take the video as more of an entertainment rather then paying attention to its tips.

Overall however I believe that the video done by Virgin America is interesting to both grasp the customers attention, whilst at the same time focusing on portraying the message about the safety tips on board of an airline.

Elaine Chang’s Blog: https://blogs.ubc.ca/echang28/2013/11/14/we-are-not-the-entertainment-industry-or-are-we/

Article and video: http://mashable.com/2013/10/29/virgin-america-safety-video/#:eyJzIjoiZiIsImkiOiJfcnFpb3Y4bTFvZWpoczJ1eXZuejc1djFxM2VfIn0

On November 11 each year, China celebrates Single’s Day. It is a day where products are sold at half price on almost all major e-commerce websites. It is a day when single and not single customers go crazy to buy as much as possible. Only 6 minutes after midnight for example, $164 million was spent on Tmall.com, China’s Amazon and eBay mixed into one.

Having such huge sales on the internet can sometimes have its limitations. Due to the enormous wave of customers, the webpages were quickly getting blocked and customers throughout the day had to stay on the webpages refreshing and waiting for the right time to purchase their product. For some customers this proved to be very frustrating and despite the good deal they were willing to give up and not buy the products.This shows some of the limited cases where customers just have to click few buttons and they would pay their money, however the sellers were not allowing them to do so. However it can also be argued that if it was that easy to get 50% off then everyone would do it. At the end of the day most of the people ended up being happy since customers who managed to buy 50% off they were satisfied as well as the sellers who now had huge revenue streams formed in just one day.

Article: http://onlinenewsunitedkingdom.com/world/2013/11/11/the-consumerism-of-singles-day/

Ryanair shares have dropped by 13% this year due to warnings from the company that the profits were going to drop. In the large scale we might look upon this issue as some of the people who have sold their shares due to the expected decline in profits, however drop in profits is not necessary bad for the company.

The company has often been criticized for making the passengers pay extra fees once and prior to the flight, which are not included in the ticket price. Such extra fees include oversize baggage and additional fee for late boarding time. However if we look at this issue from the side of Ryanair we can see that the company is encouraging people to follow the rules of the airline and at the end of the day the people who complain are people who have not followed the rules.

Another interesting aspect is that despite the warnings that the profits would go down is that people should focus more on the costs. Due to the bad economy costs will drop and Ryanair would continue dropping its costs, which in first place are already pretty law. At the end of the day, Ryanair actually might start making more profits in the long run. The drop in shares and the great emphasis on the issue might just be another part of the media overreacting.

Article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24800604