End of WestJet flight to Coast not end of the world

FRIDAY MORNING EDITORIAL — WestJet announced Thursday it will ditch its Kamloops-to-Vancouver service two weeks from now.

Any time airline service is started or ended here it’s big news. The cancellation of Westjet’s Vancouver flight only a few months after it started is disappointing, but hardly shocking.

Westjet is in big demand by communities across Canada, but it’s known for caution when it comes to providing new connections. The airline game is a tough one, and expensive. If any particular route isn’t carrying a high enough passenger load, out it goes.

It took years of intense lobbying to get Westjet to come to Kamloops at all. Finally, the economics of a Kamloops-to-Calgary run proved out, and there have always been hopes Vancouver would do the same.

When the airline purchased some new state-of-the-art Q400 turboprops, with about half the number of seats as the 737 jets, it looked like the answer had been found.

Last summer when the purchase was announced along with the Vancouver service, Kamloops airport manager Fred Legace was understandably pleased.

“These are brand-spanking new,” said Legace at the time. “You’re almost looking at cutting-edge technology. I think it will provide people with a pretty pleasant experience.”

Hopes for increased air service have risen and fallen many times in the past. Horizon Air flew for awhile between Kamloops and Seattle, proving a boon to skiers. But the airline found it couldn’t fill enough seats even in winter, let alone in summer, and bowed out.

Region1 tried it, so did Canadian Western and Pacific Coastal, with a variety of aircraft, routes and schedules.

WestJet says the mid-morning flight time wasn’t popular with business travelers. That should have come as no surprise, but airlines often schedule flights based on when they can fit their aircraft in among other flights, rather than when they’re most needed.

Failure is seldom a good thing, but it’s not the last thing. A decade ago, we feared air service might forever be bound in shallows and in miseries, to borrow from Shakespeare. Yet, today, the Kamloops Airport is thriving, showing solid traffic numbers year after year.

That’s because the city itself thrives, and air service meets the demand. There will, in time, be more daily flights between Kamloops and Vancouver, whether by WestJet, Air Canada, or a newcomer.