December travel boosts WestJet, drags down Air Canada

WestJet Airlines Ltd. benefited from Air Canada's difficult December as the Calgary upstart added planes and passengers in the month while the country's largest carrier went in the opposite direction, according to statistics released Wednesday.

Both airlines posted record load factors — the percentage of the airline's available seats that were filled with paying passengers — in the last month of 2008, according to figures published by Air Canada and WestJet.

But WestJet achieved its result by adding planes during one of the worst winters for weather on record. Air Canada, facing large numbers of flight delays and cancellations in December, adopted the reverse strategy and reduced its capacity to boost profitability.

WestJet soars

WestJet moved 12.8 per cent more passengers in December compared with the same month in 2007. In the most recent period, the carrier posted a total of 1.2 billion revenue passenger miles, a common industry measure in which passengers and the length of their flights are combined.

Three-month stock chart for WestJet Airlines Ltd.

The smaller airline boosted the number of aircraft and frequency of flights to move these people, as measured by available seat miles, a capacity yardstick, by 10.6 per cent.

Dividing the revenue passenger figure by available route miles yields the carrier's load factor, which, in WestJet's case, reached a lofty 80.9 per cent for December.

Air Canada squeezes

Air Canada posted an even better load factor for the month, 82.9 per cent, but achieved the result by moving fewer people on fewer planes than in the previous December.

Air Canada was hit with a spate of bad winter weather just as the Christmas rush began, which, combined with the flagging North American economy, crimped the air carrier's lucrative long-haul routes.

Three-month stock chart for Air Canada

Overall, Air Canada posted 6.2 per cent fewer revenue passenger miles for December versus the same month one year earlier.

The air carrier had 10 per cent fewer available seat miles ready for occupancy, however, which resulted in the improved capacity measure for December.

On the Canada-U.S. routes, Air Canada moved 15 per cent fewer passenger than in the previous December. Capacity was an issue for the Montreal-based carrier as Air Canada saw its available seat miles drop by 20 per cent on these same routes.

Airlines are loath to run empty planes, which cost money to run and gain little revenue.

For the year, Air Canada's traffic figures barely scraped into positive territory as the air carrier posted revenue passenger miles that were only 0.1 per cent higher in 2008 than in 2007.

WestJet, by contrast, moved 18 per cent more passengers in 2008 versus 2007, mainly by boosting capacity by 17 per cent.