St. John’s International Airport situated in Newfoundland and Labrador in Canada has registered a record amount of numbers during its summer 2014 season.
The Edmonton – Abbotsford route, which has been served continuously since April 2006, is currently served by two daily Boeing 737s, but the new third daily rotation from June 2015 will be flown by WestJet Encore with a smaller Bombardier Dash 8-Q400 turboprop.
The new link will operate from May 29, 2015 until October 23, 2015 using a Boeing 737-700 and like the existing St John’s – Dublin transatlantic operation will provide a same-aircraft connection to and from Toronto with other connections available to Montreal, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver and 16 other cities in WestJet's Canadian network.
WestJet Encore's move eastward is part of a strategic plan to “continue to liberate Canadians in smaller communities from the high cost of air travel,” continuing WestJet’s own pioneering developments in the larger Canadian markets through its 18-year history. The first step of this Eastern Encore expansion saw the introduction of flights to Ontario from June 27, 2014.
Initially, WestJet expects to operate four widebody aircraft with the first deployments on routes between Alberta and Hawaii during the winter season beginning in late 2015.
The airline, like many other low-cost carriers, has been actively studying the launch of long-haul services across the Atlantic and this route is seen as WestJet testing the water before expanding its activities further.
The airline currently utilises a 136-seat Boeing 737-700 on its daily Toronto - Québec City route but will replace this with a 78-seat Dash 8-Q400NextGen when Encore takes over the operation of the route from March 15, 2015.
WestJet Airlines continues to study the introduction of widebody aircraft into its fleet, but an executive of the carrier revealed in this year’s Routes Europe Strategy Summit in Marseille, France that the carrier has never been closer to formalising a deal.
Dublin Airport is set for another record-breaking year for transatlantic traffic in 2014. Last year, a record 1.9 million passengers travelled between Dublin and North America, but this total is likely to be eclipsed this year, with new routes to San Francisco, Toronto and St John’s, Newfoundland.
