Westjet Strategic Analysis

A strategic Analysis of WestJet Airline Company Student Name: Institution: A strategic Analysis of WestJet Airline Company Business description WestJet Airlines Limited is a Canadian airline company that provides low cost, quality air travel to both local and overseas destinations. The company`s head office is located at 22 Aerial place NE, in Calgary, Alberta. According to the company website, WestJet currently offers flights to 70 destinations in Canada, the United States, Mexico, and the Caribbean. The company is the second largest airline in Canada and currently owns 91 Boeing 737 aircraft. Additionally, WestJet airlines Ltd has more than of eight thousand employees under its payroll. Company History WestJet was established by four Canadian entrepreneurs; Clive Beddoe, Donald Bell, Tim Morgan and Mark Hill on 29 February 1996 in the city of Calgary, located in the province of Alberta in western Canada. The negative consequences of the Gulf war and an economic downturn in the early 1990s had gravely affected the airline industry due to prohibitive fuel prices and low passenger rates. Clive Beddoe conceived the idea of starting an airline that offered low-cost, high quality services in air travel across the western region of Canada, structuring their business model in a similar fashion to the US airlines Morris Air and Southwestern Airlines that had managed to weather the tough industry conditions at the time (Simon, 2002). The company started by providing transport to five cities; Kelowna, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Vancouver, and Calgary. The only aircraft they had at the time were three Boeing 737-200s and their staff comprised of only 220 employees. By the end of 1996, the airline had added three more Canadian cities to its route: Victoria, Saskatoon and Regina. The airline came to be a great success and by the end of 1999, it had flown a total of two million passengers to destinations within western Canada. 1999 also saw the company carrying out its first Initial Public Offer of stocks, which managed to raise 30 million Canadian Dollars. The money from the Initial Public Offering was then directed to acquiring more planes in line with the company`s plan of growth (Martin, Feils and Allen, 2005). In the year 2000, WestJet Airlines started a campaign to extend its reach into the eastern territories of Canada. The airline`s route stretched out eastward to Hamilton and Ontario in March that year, Moncton and New Brunswick in April, Ottawa in June, and finally Montreal in September (James Brooke, 2000). This saw a 77 percent increase in the company`s profits and a 54 percent increase in capacity. In the same year, the company also made a deal with Boeing to increase its fleet of jets to a total of 30 by the end of the decade (Pritchard, 2000). By 2003 WestJet had added fourteen Canadian destinations to its network and by the end of 2004 the airline had expanded into the United States (CBC News, 2004), progressing into international flights by 2007. The airline was also given top position in corporate culture rankings by Waterstone Human Capital for four consecutive years up to 2008 and in 2010 and acquired a prestigious position in the corporate cultures hall ...