Nuts About Southwest

It's official, WestJet will be our first international partner and we will be offering travel to some pretty cool destinations all the way to Canada! Okay, I know, it doesn't feel that international because it is Canada and traveling to Canada is quite simple. But they do speak different languages, eh..and those accents...and the beer...the temperature...the metric system...work with me here...this is the start of some really cool stuff.
 
It's like a dream come true. I woke up this morning and there was actually an official announcement of Southwest's first international codeshare partnership. The anticipation of something international has been talked about around here forever. Having come back to Southwest almost a year ago, I have been a part of a team that has been busy analyzing codeshare opportunities to determine how and when we would actually be able to offer our Customers the ability to travel beyond the United States. You can't imagine the complexity that goes into identifying, negotiating, developing, and finally being in position to implement an international codeshare partnership.
 
Okay, now that I've set this up to be the most difficult task that any team in the history of Southwest Airlines has ever tackled, the reality is that the choice of WestJet was so logical you could classify our task as a "no-brainer." You don't have to have taken Codeshare 101 to have made the decision to partner with a airline like WestJet but hey, we want our partnerships to meet and exceed all Customer expectations. Naturally, we took the time to make sure WestJet was the great airline we had heard it was. We found that there were so many similarities to Southwest, they had to be a great airline!
 
So stay tuned, we will begin the relationship by selling existing WestJet flights on southwest.com. We will then evolve to provide a seamless travel experience for Southwest Customers connecting to and from Canada. It'll take several months for this to happen because, as I mentioned, it really is a complicated process but it will be well worth the wait for US and Canadian Customers.
 
We look forward to hearing from the Westjetters (Westjet Employees) and their Guests (their Customers) along with Southwest Employees and our Customers about this wonderful opportunity.
 
I think my first trip will be to Banff Springs.