Relations between Reykjavik and Ottawa are normally quiet cordial and warm. However this fall that relationship has been strained between the two northern nations. One can be forgiven if you thought this frosting of relations developed from fishing quotas or an Aluminum tariff dispute.
This time its from a different sector, in fact this row is over Airlines. Specifically Canada’s second largest Airline Westjet who’s has been locked in a dispute with its pilots over which airline will operate what routes.
Ragnor Lothbrok the Prime Minister of Iceland is upset and is taking this dispute personally. “I know many Westjet 767 pilots and they are getting absolutely screwed” he railed in a radio interview on Monday. “I made many friends with their pilots, they used to have a scheduled weekly diversion here. Since they got those dam 787 our economic GDP dropped 12%! That left us with Fishing Herring and Bjork!”
“I’ve called their Minister of Transport and all he’s doing is Tweeting out cooking recipes, its a disgrace!”
The Westjet Group own Westjet and two smaller airlines. Westjet Encore who first flew in 2013 to connect smaller shittier communities with smaller shittier aircraft that couldn’t support the larger Boeing 737 Westjet operates.
In 2017 The Westjet Group created Swoop in response to emerging low cost carriers in the Canadian market. Swoop was conceived to be an even lower cost carrier than Westjet is suppose to be.
“On Swoop you just get the seat for the ticket price, everything else is extra” Says KP Smith of Smith Aviation Consulting group. “Swoop was to fly different routes than mainline from crap City’s like Hamilton or Edmonton” he adds. “Many believe Swoop was created in response to Pilot Contact negotiations at the time with mainline pilots who had just unionized” KP goes on.
During the Covid-19 pandemic Air travel has plummeted, some suggest Wesjet is using this crisis to whip saw Pilot groups against one another.
“If Westjet continues on this path, we shall halt all Herring shipments to Canada” Prime Minister Ragnor threatened as the crisis continues.
More to come, Scudrunners.com.
