Travel

WestJet to layoff more than 3,300 employees due to COVID-19 pandemic

  • Last Updated:
  • Jun 26th, 2020 11:17 am
19 replies
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Oct 3, 2013
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Was wondering why the call centre times have been > 6-8 hour waits lately. I was jokingly saying yesterday that everyone probably got laid off and there's barely any agents working there now... guess I wasn't totally off. Finally got through, and the agent was really bummed out with the news. Apparently there will likely be more tough decisions to be made come the end of July, and she wasn't sure she'd survive the next cut. It was pretty sad to hear.

Definitely not good at all. WestJet's financials are no where near AC's, and they are definitely not in a strong position to weather this storm. But of course, people will still likely come into this thread and celebrate WestJet's demise...
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Mar 4, 2010
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damn that sucks as i really enjoy westjet over aircanada. I hope they can get a bailout like AC has done many times over the past few decades
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May 10, 2005
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Can't keep people sitting around and getting paid with nothing to do. No income, no revenue, no way to pay.
These round of layoffs are permanent. They say it will "contract out its operations in all but four of its 38 domestic airports, leaving just Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver and Toronto."
Air Canada should be doing the same thing.
Last edited by Pete_Coach on Jun 25th, 2020 8:51 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Feb 29, 2008
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Sad. Travel industry is done for a long time and all the businesses connected to that are in trouble....obviously. Just sad that this had to happen when it could have easily been avoided.
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JayLove06 wrote: Sad. Travel industry is done for a long time and all the businesses connected to that are in trouble....obviously. Just sad that this had to happen when it could have easily been avoided.
How could it have been avoided.....?
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Pete_Coach wrote: How could it have been avoided.....?
Coronavirus? The fallout could have been avoided. Absolutely.
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JayLove06 wrote: Coronavirus? The fallout could have been avoided. Absolutely.
Sure :) No one tried? LOL
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Feb 29, 2008
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Pete_Coach wrote: Sure :) No one tried? LOL
It was a piss poor effort at the beginning and now for some countries. But prevention is the best way and there was fail all around. WHO, China, etc. A lot of blame to be passed around.
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Phonophoresis wrote: Was wondering why the call centre times have been > 6-8 hour waits lately. I was jokingly saying yesterday that everyone probably got laid off and there's barely any agents working there now... guess I wasn't totally off. Finally got through, and the agent was really bummed out with the news. Apparently there will likely be more tough decisions to be made come the end of July, and she wasn't sure she'd survive the next cut. It was pretty sad to hear.

Definitely not good at all. WestJet's financials are no where near AC's, and they are definitely not in a strong position to weather this storm. But of course, people will still likely come into this thread and celebrate WestJet's demise...
I think Westjet "call centers" are actually people working from home.
https://www.westjet.com/en-ca/about-us/ ... act-centre
JayLove06 wrote: It was a piss poor effort at the beginning and now for some countries. But prevention is the best way and there was fail all around. WHO, China, etc. A lot of blame to be passed around.
No prevention for viruses. It's like saying it's a poor effort to stop the flu.
Your conspiracy theory falls flat LOL
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Nov 2, 2005
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JayLove06 wrote: It was a piss poor effort at the beginning and now for some countries. But prevention is the best way and there was fail all around. WHO, China, etc. A lot of blame to be passed around.
Agreed, if the rest of the world had realised the eventual outcome and had taken it as seriously as they should have it could have absolutely been contained and wiped out in Wuhan. Too late now, we have to deal with the consequences of our collective inaction.
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Pete_Coach wrote: No prevention for viruses. It's like saying it's a poor effort to stop the flu.
Your conspiracy theory falls flat LOL
Are you one of the smart people who believes there is nothing we could have done? The US did everything possible to prevent what has happened to this date? 120k deaths.

WO and China as well? You can’t be serious. Telling people face coverings were useless? Young people are unaffected? Was that smart? You see BC’s response and then you see Ontario’s. Certain provinces got locked down for months and had less than 10 deaths.

No preventative measures could have been taken?
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JayLove06 wrote: Are you one of the smart people who believes there is nothing we could have done? The US did everything possible to prevent what has happened to this date? 120k deaths.

WO and China as well? You can’t be serious. Telling people face coverings were useless? Young people are unaffected? Was that smart? You see BC’s response and then you see Ontario’s. Certain provinces got locked down for months and had less than 10 deaths.

No preventative measures could have been taken?
Read what I wrote, not what you think I wrote.
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JayLove06 wrote: Sad. Travel industry is done for a long time and all the businesses connected to that are in trouble....obviously. Just sad that this had to happen when it could have easily been avoided.
Do you think hotels will suffer the same?
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choclover wrote: Do you think hotels will suffer the same?
For sure. Read that Calgary at 20% occupancy . They usually at 80% or higher during this time. Stampede cancellation and COVID hit them hard.

Places like Vegas with tons of extra hotel rooms have really cheap rates now and even free parking (!) at some locations.
Cars ruin cities
Cars ruin cities
Cars ruin cities
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choclover wrote: Do you think hotels will suffer the same?
Big time. They're already suffering now. We have some clients that are impacted by this and there are major hotel chains that can't pay until 2022. Projects shelved, etc.
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That is why stock has been dropping lately.
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dirtmover wrote: Agreed, if the rest of the world had realised the eventual outcome and had taken it as seriously as they should have it could have absolutely been contained and wiped out in Wuhan. Too late now, we have to deal with the consequences of our collective inaction.
Great piece of sarcasm :)

Or maybe the orbuculum was smudged and the clairvoyants could not get a good read?? LOL
Last edited by Pete_Coach on Jun 26th, 2020 12:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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dirtmover wrote: Agreed, if the rest of the world had realised the eventual outcome and had taken it as seriously as they should have it could have absolutely been contained and wiped out in Wuhan. Too late now, we have to deal with the consequences of our collective inaction.
Until the first week of January coronavirus had not been identified. At that time those with symptoms were identified as having a pneumonia of unknown cause. After the genetic sequence was identified, it was unclear whether human-to-human transmission was occurring. The coronavirus was outside of China before this was confirmed.

https://www.who.int/emergencies/disease ... hey-happen
Global warming will be exceeded during the 21st century unless deep reductions in carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gas emissions occur (United Nations IPCC Report 2021)

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