WestJet won't speed growth as Air Canada falters OTTAWA (Reuters) =97 WestJet Airlines, the upstart competitor to national=20 carrier Air Canada, said Thursday it would not speed up its expansion plans= =20 to take advantage of Air Canada's financial troubles. "We're not going to=20 grow any faster. The easy way to kill an airline is to grow too fast,"=20 Clive Beddoe, chief executive of the no-frills carrier, told reporters in=20 Ottawa. "We'll just keep our pace going the way we're going," Beddoe said=20 reporters after testifying to a parliamentary hearing looking into the=20 plight of Air Canada, which entered bankruptcy protection Tuesday. Beddoe=20 said WestJet, Canada's second largest airline, would shift resources around= =20 if Air Canada retrenched. "We will certainly be reallocating capacity in=20 the right slots as we see where there is a need and where there's demand,"= =20 said Beddoe, who has prided himself on being able to make a profit in the=20 current difficult environment. Beddoe said WestJet planned to increase its= =20 fleet to 44 airlines at the end of this year and more than 50 by the end of= =20 2004, from 36 airlines at present. Air Canada plans is to emerge from=20 bankruptcy protection with a lower cost structure. The airline's vice president for government relations, Stephen Markey, said= =20 after testifying at the committee that Air Canada had already announced=20 plans to lay 3,600 of its 35,000 employees, but more job cuts might follow.= =20 He also noted the company had pledged to cut capacity by up to 15% in the=20 next few months. *************************************************** The owner of Roger's Trinbago Site/TnTisland.com Roj (Roger James) escape email mailto:ejames@xxxxxxxxx Trinbago site: www.tntisland.com Carib Brass Ctn site www.tntisland.com/caribbeanbrassconnection/ Steel Expressions www.mts.net/~ejames/se/ Site of the Week:http://www.ttsailing.org/ TnT Webdirectory: http://search.co.tt *********************************************************