WestJet Partners With Oneworld For Corporate Agreements

WestJet this month partnered with the Oneworld airline alliance to tailor joint corporate agreements and discounts for Canada-based companies. WestJet, which is the second-largest Canadian carrier after Star Alliance member Air Canada, stressed that it is not officially joining the alliance, and a Oneworld spokesperson said the deal does not include codeshare or interline agreements.

Seven Oneworld members—American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Japan Airlines, LAN, Qantas and Royal Jordanian—are working with WestJet on the corporate-specific offering, the carriers said. Oneworld said the deal gives the alliance further corporate traction in Canada—a country where the alliance offers no domestic network—while giving WestJet further access to international business beyond the few North American points to which its network modestly extends.

"This allows us to level the playing field in regards to network-to-network comparisons," said WestJet director of sales and business development Duncan Bureau. The Oneworld spokesperson would not give specifics as to how corporate discounts would be structured, but said, "These are based on the volumes of the business. The more people fly with us, the higher the discount."

For deals constructed under the offering—dubbed Canadaconnect—the Oneworld spokesperson said, "Between the eight airlines participating at this stage, we will appoint one point of contact that will manage the account on behalf of all the airlines participating." Bureau said the carrier likely would take the lead in managing the contracts, noting about half of WestJet's business is "corporate or under contract."

Bureau added, "Given the majority of that spend from a corporate Canada perspective is domestic, we would probably be the ones with the most relationships, considering the number of corporate accounts we've built over the last 18 months."

Oneworld and WestJet said they would consider linking up further. However, Bureau said WestJet must first ramp up its technological capabilities to enable codesharing—an initiative already underway to fulfill an agreement announced in July with Southwest Airlines.

"We continue to work with Southwest for the implementation of the codeshare in the fourth quarter of 2009, and we're very excited about what that will look like," Bureau said. "WestJet would look to negotiate codeshare agreements with Oneworld participating carriers. We think there's tremendous opportunity there. Both Southwest and WestJet are working furiously on the technology that's needed to facilitate codesharing."