Air Transat plans to complete the roll out of its joint venture with Porter Airlines next year, says chief executive Annick Guerard.
The implementation is occurring in phases with the first, which includes coordinating Canadian and European flights and routes, starting 5 June. The initial phase also includes sales of both airlines’ flights through either partners’ distribution channels.
The second phase will come this fall and integrate Air Transat and Porter flights to the US, Guerard said during the airline’s quarterly results call on 6 June. The third phase is due in 2025 and will cover the airlines’ operations to the Caribbean and Latin America.
“By the end of 2025, we should have pretty much everything in line, adding as well some alignment on loyalty,” Guerard adds.
Air Transat and Porter hope the joint venture will boost their respective businesses, as well as their positions in the fiercely competitive Canadian market. Since the pandemic, Canada has evolved from a market dominated by two major airlines — Air Canada and WestJet — to one with several new ultra low-cost entrants and a rapidly growing Porter.
Both partners lag Canadian market leaders Air Canada and WestJet in market share. In addition, Air Transat operates almost no domestic flights and Porter lacks any international feed from Europe or the Caribbean to its domestic-focused network.
The first phase of the joint venture is to cover roughly 45% of Air Transat’s system capacity, measured in available seat miles, Cirium schedule data for the first half of the year shows. For Porter, which only serves Canada and the US, the first phase will cover more than 75% of capacity.
Air Transat expects the pact to “generate incremental customer traffic”, Guerard says. “Our codesharing partnership results so far have been in line with our expectations, so we are confident in the added potential of this JV.”
Air Transat and Porter announced their pact, which built on an existing codeshare, in 2023, with plans to roll it out this year. Implementation has taken longer than expected. Guerard does not elaborate about the cause of the delay.
