The airline industry rides a train that is propelled by many different factors, such as the state of the economy, jet fuel prices, people’s view of the industry itself and the image of the individual airline entity. Founded by Clive Beddoe, Don Bell, Mark Hill and Tim Morgan, WestJet has been riding a different train from the get-go since its inauguration in 1996,. Nobody would have thought that a bottom-up management structure in an airline business would work so well. The culture that they have built is now part of their brand and they are proud of it.
As their culture being part of their brand, the low-cost, no hassle airliner should have some contingency plans in place to secure their business and culture. The culture, at the moment, is “a very relaxed, fun, youthful environment in which creativity and innovation are rewarded” (WestJet airlines). The company looks for younger recruits and actually prefer people with less experience (ref). This will be addressed later on in our document. Unfortunately, experience is somewhat of a necessity in a business that can suffer tremendous repercussions for human mistakes.
As experience plays a key role in maintaining job confidence and comfortability, it also plays a major role in top management. People, generally, either look up to management or despise top management. WestJet has tried to mitigate this problem by hiring people they think that will match their culture. If they do not fit into the culture, simply put, they are let-go. This can put a lot of pressure on new managers as they may have some pre-flight jitters.
Being nervous is one thing but feeling threatened is by no means a light topic. This is why WestJet has adopted Pro-Active Communication Team (PACT). It is a sort of union analogy, acting as an output for employees to communicate to upper level management and across work groups. Unions often create the image of a “you versus us” mentality and this is