April 17, 2010
Southwest Airlines cancel its code-sharing agreement with Canadian carrier WestJet Airlines, a decision that will slow its entry into Canada.
Dallas-based Southwest said Friday it couldn’t go along with changes to the agreement requested by WestJet, which wants to begin a code-sharing deal with Delta Air Lines Inc. from New York LaGuardia Airport.
“We prefer the existing terms of our agreement with WestJet,” said Bob Jordan, Southwest’s executive vice president of strategy and planning. ”Upon reviewing the number of changes that WestJet has requested, we have decided that it is in the best interest of both parties to move forward independently.”
Delta, which wants to swap landing and takeoff slots with US Airways Inc., has proposed giving WestJet five pairs of slots at LaGuardia. Southwest chairman and chief executive Gary Kelly said the existing Southwest-WestJet agreement wouldn’t allow WestJet and Delta to code-share out of LaGuardia.
Code-sharing is an airline industry practice of putting one airline’s flight number, or code, on another carrier’s flights so that each can feed their passengers to the other carrier’s flights.
Southwest and WestJet originally planned to launch their partnership in 2009, but delayed the implementation until 2010 at Southwest’s request.
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The collapse of their arrangement leaves Southwest without access to the Canadian market.
“We remain interested in exploring the possibility of one day offering service to Canada if it makes sense for Southwest and for our customers,” Jordan said. “That would not rule out future code-share relationships with Canadian carriers, or flying north of the border ourselves.”
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