A WestJet plane waits at a gate at Calgary International Airport on Aug. 31.Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press
WestJet Airlines has ordered 42 Boeing Max-10 aircraft, charting a postpandemic course focused on a single type of aircraft.
The purchase announced on Thursday comes with the option to buy 22 more, on top of an existing order for 23 of the 737 Max planes.
WestJet chief executive officer Alexis von Hoensbroech said the first of the planes is scheduled to arrive after 2024. By 2028, about 80 per cent of WestJet’s fleet will be the 737 Max, which offers better fuel efficiency and emits 20 per cent less carbon per seat than older models.
The announcement comes after Monday’s move by the federal government to lift all COVID-19-related restrictions at airports and the border, dropping mask, vaccine and quarantine requirements. The news was welcomed by the aviation industry, which blamed much of the summer’s airport chaos on poorly staffed government agencies enforcing COVID-19 protocols.
The aircraft order is “tied to our confidence that demand will return and aviation will be back, after the pandemic. Of course, we didn’t negotiate this over the past three days. We were expecting the restrictions will go away sooner or later,” Mr. Hoensbroech said in an interview.
The dominance of the 737 variants in WestJet’s fleet simplifies training and availability of pilots and flight attendants, he said. “The cabin crew and pilots and can easily switch between the different models. It’s very efficient.”
WestJet is not revealing the purchase price. The Max 10 has list price of US$135-million each, valuing the 42-plane order at US$5.7-billion before customary discounts. The Max 10 can seat up to 230 people, depending on the configuration. It has the range to serve WestJet’s North American network, and cross the Atlantic Ocean from Eastern Canada.
In June, WestJet said it would pull back from regional flying in Eastern Canada. Instead, it will concentrate on Western Canada, connecting Eastern Canada to leisure destinations and the West, in addition to maintaining affordable airfares. “This is basically the fleet order that we need to make this all happen,” said Mr. Hoensbroech, who joined WestJet in February. He said it is too soon to say how the order will be financed.
Calgary-based WestJet’s current fleet consists of 170 aircraft, including 110 variants of the 737.
The 737 Max was grounded worldwide beginning in March, 2019, for almost two years after a pair of fatal crashes killed 346 people. The crashes were blamed on the flawed flight stabilizing systems in the Max planes flown by Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines. The Max was approved to return to the skies after design and training changes.
Eric Atkins