Westjet: UltraBasic

[westwoody]

My objection is to what constitutes personal carry on.....some people will have a carryon bag and then be wearing a backpack the size a sherpa would wear on a K2 expedition. I know that checked bags are costly but it seems unfair that someone can use a huge backpack and just carry everything with them onto the plane and as another poster mentioned, the overheads are always jammed.

This infuriates me.
I was in the boarding lineup and everyone had to test fit their bag in the box at the gate.
Then some douchebag comes along with a golf bag and clubs and gets a pass WTF 🤬

 

[vanblue]

The best airline I have flown on in Canada is Porter. They don’t have middle seats, serve free alcohol on the flight, good snacks, good pricing, and overall the best experience with airlines here. I dont know if they have international flights, but if you’re flying in Canada look them up.

I flew on Porter several months ago and was very pleasantly surprised.....great service, new planes and (gassp!) free alcohol as kelcaine noted

 

[apl16]

The best airline I have flown on in Canada is Porter. They don’t have middle seats, serve free alcohol on the flight, good snacks, good pricing, and overall the best experience with airlines here. I dont know if they have international flights, but if you’re flying in Canada look them up.

Porter has partnered up with Air Transat to some degree to flights to Europe.
Air Canada and worstjet have pissed we off enough in the past to try to avoid them if possible.
I'm hoping to use them for a trip to Portugal this fall.

 

[blondeluver]

Yeah, what other industry allows you to sell the same thing to two or more people? At least go back to offering standby its more honest.

And board the plane from back to front so were all not waiting for someone to squeeze a giant bag into thw overheads

welcome to Canada... no competition at all! Oh wait.. we have Jazz..Flair...AC Express, Westjet..AC... but all in all, they are all OWNED by 2 companies! Much like cell phone companies...Koodo, Fido, Chatr, Virgin Mobile, Telus, Rogers, Bell, Lucky Mobile...Public Mobile.. sounded impressive but still owned by the 3!!! We need true independent companies and not a rebranded!

 

[VinVan]

Easi

welcome to Canada... no competition at all! Oh wait.. we have Jazz..Flair...AC Express, Westjet..AC... but all in all, they are all OWNED by 2 companies! Much like cell phone companies...Koodo, Fido, Chatr, Virgin Mobile, Telus, Rogers, Bell, Lucky Mobile...Public Mobile.. sounded impressive but still owned by the 3!!! We need true independent companies and not a rebranded!

Easier said than done. It’s the natural evolution of neo-liberal capitalism. Once there is a new industry (say automobiles) thousands of startups flood the market to attempt to capitalize on being first or second to market; as the industry matures there is consolidation thru bankruptcy or M&A. Eventually there are only one or two large players left through these and other predatory strategies (eg Uber using it’s limitless capital to price their ride sharing costs well below market to bankrupt the taxi industry and now that they have eliminated the competition they can price as they please with little competition ). So left unregulated, large companies will always squash or buy up their competitors, leaving the illusion of competition (eg. Cole and Pepsi, or as you have observed, Air Canada and Westjet). Or Rogers, Bell and Telus and they can nudge-nudge, wink-wink their oligarchy prices with unspoken boardroom agreements on artificially inflated prices.

 

[Ame123]

Porter has been around 15 years or more and the jet the fly an EMB is made in Brazil and has been around for about 15 years the plane type, AC had about 40 of them starting in about 2005

 

[beachjunky]

Flying in Canada is the worst. Having flown around the world, what rest of the world gets for a % of what Canadians pay in Canada, would shock you...and I can't believe no one wants to fix Canadian flying.

 

[Once you go black]

Did you get the exciting news from Westjet? In a nutshell, they're claiming to offer guests new fare options with affordability choice, they want guests to now be able to choose the products and services they value as part of their flight booking. Sounds great in theory. Personally I'd love to have a transparent breakdown of pricing and perks: I'd get to choose if I want to pick my seat, take a carry on, check a bag in, board first or last, earn points, etc.

In practice however, it seems Westjet has just renamed their basic tier of tickets to UltraBasic, keeping virtually the same Basic prices, but removing ALL the perks! You don't even get to always sit together as a couple.

Westjet did not reduce prices or increase affordability and choice, it effectively increased the prices but claimed it to a a good thing.
You can't take your guests for idiots. Ok, many are idiots. But are we all stupid enough to not see this is akin to shrinkflation in retail?
And of course I think the name is an oxymoron. This is not UltraBasic, it's InfraBasic. Because it's INFERIOR to Basic.

Naturally Air Canada will follow soon enough. Great move for all Canadians.. not.

In principle, I'm sick of people bringing 2-3 jumbo bags of all shapes and dimensions onto the plane under guise of carry-on. It's getting beyond ridiculous. Every flight is overbooked, every carry-on compartment is full, people are literally fighting each other and the crew. Flights are offering free check-in at the gates on regular basis because of too many carry-ons. I think it's time to charge a fee for every carry-on other than a personal bag: tighten the restrictions on the size and weight; and instead make the check-in cheaper with the first one included, or make everything an extra fee, and actually drop the base fare price.

Remember the old days of flying, the comfort at the gate, stress free boarding, when it did not feel like trying to squeeze into an over crowded bus in Banaglore.

Air Canada introduced all of these same policies 10 yrs ago . At least west jet held out as long as they could .

 

[Once you go black]

Flying in Canada is the worst. Having flown around the world, what rest of the world gets for a % of what Canadians pay in Canada, would shock you...and I can't believe no one wants to fix Canadian flying.

It’s the airport tax . Canadian airports have some of the highest landing taxes.