CEO Alexis von Hoensbroech says bringing Swoop and Sunwing Airlines under its banner won’t lead to higher airfares, since integrating the discount carriers will also tamp down costs.
In a phone interview Wednesday, the chief executive said Canada’s second-biggest airline will be able to swap out planes more easily and expand the range of destinations for travellers on the hunt for cheap tickets.“With the scale, we will actually be able to operate more efficiently and also more reliably, because if something goes wrong, if it’s a small airline then it’s far more difficult for them to recover,” he said.
“Let’s take Victoria. From Victoria to Cancun, there may not be sufficient guests to fill a Sunwing plane with 189 people on board. So therefore Sunwing wouldn’t be able to actually fly.plane instead, then we can actually consolidate not just the package tour guests but also all the other segments that may want to fly down to Cancun. Or we could use aflight from Victoria to Calgary and feed a plane that goes from Calgary to Cancun,” he said from the company headquarters at the Calgary airport.
Some experts have warned that the mergers would result in lower competition and higher airfares, particularly for sun destinations.and Sunwing comprise 37 per cent of seat capacity on direct flights to sun destinations, and 72 per cent from Western Canada, according to an October report from the Competition Bureau.
While competition remains intense and prices low on major Canadian routes such as Toronto to Vancouver, fares to sunny getaways, U.S. cities and European hot spots have all gone up over the past year.
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