In somewhat of a surprising statement Air Canada CEO Calin Rovinescu said in an interview with the Financial Post that it would not they who would be expanding service in Canada going forward.
This essentially leaves the market to Westjet Airlines to achieve their goal of a 50/50 domestic share.
Rovinescu says his airline will look to the Open Skies agreement for expansion opportunities worldwide.
He is confident in a turnaround in the economy and envisions considerable profits in overseas markets as countries look to tourism again in attracting Canadian visitors.
While Canada’s share of tourist market has dropped in a tough economy, our attractions and perceived personality of our people is seen as very positive.
He may have the right strategy and Westjet may thank him for coming up with it.
Ummm – interesting interpretation but not actually what he said.
Here's the actual quote "We intend to fight for our market share inside Canada, but a lot of our growth will come from outside of Canada, and that's a statement I make with a lot of comfort because I think we have a great product that we can compete with anyone internationally. Domestically, WestJet's growth is eating up whatever growth there will be in the domestic market, more or less, and so, do we get into a fight-to-the-bottom type of thing? We need to fight for a our market share, and we will, beyond that I don't want to do irrational things with our pricing.
Read more: http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=3018871#ixzz0nuYe1V5c