Thanks for nothing, Westjet!

It's hard to believe that 10 years ago, Westjet began operating from Hamilton, making the Munro International Airport the eastern hub for the discount airline.  Two years later, the airline became a success, but they longed for something bigger.  It seemed that Hamilton wasn't enough for them.

Forget that Hamilton had the fastest turnaround time among the airports and forget that operating from Hamilton saved money.  Hamilton was an airport on the cusp of becoming more than just a cargo hub to UPS, Purolator, Cargojet and DHL.  The city had big plans for the airport and Westjet was on the forefront.

Westjet was great, until they smelled blood coming from Toronto.  It seemed that they were tipped off that Air Canada and Canadian were going down the tubes and what better way would there be to take advantage of such a situation than to move their primary operations to Toronto?  So off to ol'YYZ they went, leaving an awful void, which was filled by Canjet, for about a year, until Air Canada announced that they were offering Jazz service to Ottawa and Montreal.

So here we are now.  Westjet pulled all but just a handful of flights throughout the week starting earlier this month and now Hamilton Airport is back where it started.  It seems that the Toronto mentality that has plagued Hamilton, since its inception is taking hold, because no other airline since FlyGlobeSpan left has come to the city.

So now Westjet wants to offer more flights to Orlando from Hamilton.  They've already ran away and people have accepted that Westjet has betrayed Hamilton and now Westjet wants to offer more flights.

How do people choose an airline to deal with?  They base it on not just the experience during the flight, but the experience before takeoff and after landing.  Loyalty as easy as it is to build, is difficult to rebuild when you've betrayed your customers.

Westjet betrayed Hamilton and destroyed its loyalty base to score cheap points against an already struggling airline.  People in Burlington and Oakville would like to have an alternative to the already chaotic Pearson International Airport and people in the Hamilton/Brantford/Niagara area would like to have an airline they can use, which is reasonable, with less hassle and offers a solid alternative to Buffalo and Toronto.

So now that Westjet has destroyed what little goodwill remains, perhaps another airline would like to come to Hamilton and finally give Westjet a taste of its own medicine.