WestJet's CEO, Alexis von Hoensbroech, travelled to Ottawa the week of 25SEP to update parliamentarians about recovery - and crucially - to demand changes to policies that hold airlines solely accountable for air industry performance.
According to a release by the airline, von Hoensbroech highlighted "record-setting demand, that surpassed pre-pandemic levels" this summer, and how WestJet "maintained stable operations" during that time, addressing politicians' concerns about the industry's rocky recovery performance.
"We responded to these hurdles with a commitment to do better, investing in our guests, our people and technology across all touchpoints of the travel journey, to safeguard travel plans and enhance our operational resiliency," he said. "This summer we've demonstrated that we have collectively improved and are taking major strides to rebuild trust among our guests through our operational performance."
He bolstered that statement with stats that showed WestJet hired over 2000 new staff members this year and improved its on-time performance by 7% and baggage handling performance by 54.2%.
To parliamentarians, von Hoensbroech "addressed the growing consensus and concern amongst industry stakeholders surrounding the proposed Air Passenger Protection Regulations (APPR) reforms, emphasizing the need for shared accountability," the company statement said.
He pointed out the double standards that Ottawa is expecting airlines to operate under, including an 18-month backlog of air passenger complaints at the CTA - while at the same time, "WestJet is required to respond to all APPR claims within 30 days."
He also addressed existing rules and proposed changes to the Air Passenger Protection Regulations (APPR):
"Currently, airlines are the only service provider within the air travel ecosystem that are held accountable to their failures. This results in confusion and frustration for our guests when their travel doesn't go as planned as a result of missteps by any other service provider within the aviation industry."
WestJet's CEO says that, in order to improve travel across Canada, Ottawa should:
- Strengthen and amend Bill C52 to ensure any entity whose operations result in delays and cancels have clear performance metrics, communication and equal compensation requirements to that of airlines.
- Review and address the growing consensus that APPR reforms proposed would:
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- Contradict Canada's aviation safety culture
- Negatively impact regional connectivity and air fares in Canada
- Diminish progress made across Canada's recovering aviation industry.
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- Clear the complaint backlog at the CTA by imposing an equal service standard to that of airlines, which requires airlines to provide a response within 30 days, to ensure guests do not wait 18 months for resolution.
"We accept and remain accountable to compensating our guests when we are at fault for impacting their travel journey, however, to ensure meaningful improvements for our guests, APPR must provide a shared accountability framework and a service standard that results in the timely resolution of all complaints," von Hoensbroech told politicians.
