sjc
Active Member
Unless Westjet is willing to cede whole chunks of eastern Canada to Porter, it's unlikely they could co-operate. What could Porter offer Westjet in return?
While Porter has almost certainly siphoned off some of Westjet's Eastern traffic, the primary casualty is Air Canada/Air Canada Jazz. Westjet doesn't really have that many flights in the east.
Toronto-Ottawa, for example is only 5 flights a day (and have been as few as 3) and not really at the most convenient times. For business travel, they aren't really convenient a lot of the time. I think they are intended primarily for giving Ottawa passengers access to the flights out west from YYZ.
For someone from Halifax, Westjet is still going to be more convenient for someone going to Winnipeg or Calgary, which will fill up their YYZ flights.
While Porter is stealing some of the O&D traffic to and from Toronto, those passengers (certainly the premium ones that all airlines want) were more tied to Air Canada and Aeroplan/MLLs.
Competing with Westjet and Air Canada on the Calgary-Edmonton-Vancouver triangle would be a different story and might be a lot more difficult.