Published: 05 Nov 2008: Global airline alliance oneworld and WestJet have introduced a global travel programme for businesses in Canada.
The new initiative, canadaconnect corporate travel programme, offers companies across Canada special rates on their business air travel around the globe. canadaconnect offers departures from more than 25 cities across the country.
"What this allows us to do is offer corporate Canada a single contract that provides domestic and international [flights]," said Duncan Bureau, WestJet´s vice-president of sales and airline partnerships.
The new travel programme was developed in response to requests from corporate customers, who feared that giving WestJet more of their domestic business would limit their access to Air Canada´s international corporate rates, reported money.cnn.com. Air Canada requires its corporate customers to commit 80 percent of their domestic travel to its network in order to gain access to the discounted rates with Star Alliance members, Bureau said. He added that WestJet would impose no restrictions.
Both oneworld and WestJet stressed that there are no plans at present for the Canadian airline to join the alliance.
Alongside WestJet, seven oneworld member airlines are participating in the programme: American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Japan Airlines, LAN, Qantas and Royal Jordanian.
Other oneworld members may join in the future.
