A year and half ago WestJet announced they had ordered Boeing 787 Dreamliners and then five months ago we were introduced to what their 787’s will look like on the inside and out.
All along however what we did not know is where WestJet would fly them. We know that to get ETOPS rating it needs to be flown on some shorter routes to start (our guesses were between YYC/YVR and YYZ) but the big question was where internationally they will go. WestJet already serves a few destinations in Europe and many of their earnings calls and annual general meetings talk about Asia and Australia but there have not been any definitive answers. Another of our guesses was Paris from places like Calgary and/or Toronto. This route would make a lot of sense since WestJet already serves the city – it was even mentioned that the current Halifax-Paris route was set in place as training and learning ground for future flights to the city. You go to many frequent flyer, avgeek and other forums and there are threads dedicated to guesses as to what the routes would be. With all this WestJet has done a very good job at keeping the destinations a secret so that they could be revealed today during their big breakfast bash detailing WestJet’s global future in Alberta at the Calgary Chamber of Commerce. However some routes were filed on Tuesday (Source Routesonline)
Were you guessing? Want to see if you were right? Here are the long haul routes WestJet will initially fly with the 787:
- Calgary to London Gatwick starting on April 29 (Daily service)
- Calgary to Paris starting on May 17 ( 3 to 4x weekly service)
- Calgary to Dublin starting on June 1 (3 weekly service)
All these routes should go on sale today, including their new lie flat business class pods for the flights starting on April 28
Did you guess right for the routes? Are you excited with today’s announcement? Let us know in the comments section below!