WestJet permanently cuts more than 3,000 jobs

WestJet has permanently cut more than one third of its remaining workforce as the effects of the pandemic force the airline to reduce and outsource services in an effort to continue cutting costs. CE Ed Sims said Wednesday that the company will permanently eliminate the roles of 3,333 members of staff, also known as “WestJetters”, throughout the organisation. That will leave less than 5,000 empoyees out of a pre-coronavirus workforce of 14,000. The carrier will consolidate its contact centre activity to one location only - Calgary - and outsource airport operations at all domestic airports other than Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton and Toronto. In addition, the airline will “strategically restructure our office and our management staff”. The staff reductions at Canada’s second-largest airline come as a blow just ten days after it said it was expanding its summer schedule in July to more than double what had been planned for June. “This situation is nobody’s fault and nothing anyone could have done would have created a different outcome,” Sims says. “Reducing WestJetter roles has always been a last resort. If there were other viable options open to us we would be taking them.”<br/>