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Extra flight to Calgary won’t be renewed

The airline added the extra seasonal flight between Penticton and Calgary last year
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(WestJet.com)

An experiment with added flights to and from Calgary won’t be renewed this year, a spokesperson with WestJet has confirmed.

“As all airlines do, WestJet evaluates all routes based on a variety of factors, including ensuring we are meeting guests needs, maintaining profitable flying as well as supply and demand,” said spokesperson Lauren Stewart. “In the end, we evaluated the route, and unfortunately it did not have the traffic necessary to sustain it again this fall.”

Stewart couldn’t comment on what kind of passenger flow it takes to keep a route flying, nor whether there were any other options being looked at.

Related: WestJet seasonal flight on pause

But Stewart said in an email there are a number of factors that factor into a decision to keep a route or add another one.

That includes travel patterns, such as where passengers are going and how often, aircraft availability, maintaining profitability and usage of the route.

Last fall, WestJet added some flights that added to the daily afternoon flights between Calgary and Penticton, intended as a winter-only addition to the schedule.

In May, that schedule was pulled back down to one flight per day between the cities, with Stewart citing other priorities for the plane used for the added flight during the summer season.

“Although the community will not have a second daily flight this summer, we will evaluate how the route was used overall and make a decision for next winter that makes sense for our guests in the community and our shareholders,” Stewart told the Western News in March.

Earlier in the summer, WestJet added to its schedule more flights to and from Kelowna, including on routes to Edmonton, Calgary and Toronto.

Related: WestJet increases service to and from Kelowna