Flight Path: How WestJet Is Flying High in Canada's Most Turbulent Industry - Hardcover

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Paul Grescoe has been chronicling Western Canadian entrepreneurs for decades―from the legendary Vancouver billionaire Jim Pattison (Jimmy) to the Winnipeg couple who founded the Harlequin romance empire (The Merchants of Venus). With his wife, Audrey, he is also a compiler of three recent volumes of private correspondence that illuminate Canadian history. The Grescoes live on Bowen Island, a world away from the rest of British Columbia.

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Way to go!

At a time when so many airlines around the world were crashing and burning, four partners seemed to be taking a mad risk in launching a new, low-cost carrier in Canada. WestJet was born on February 29, 1996, and has ever since managed to soar above the clouds of doom that have gathered around the turbulent airline industry.

How do they do it? How do the people of WestJet continue to make their company one of the most successful start-ups in airline history? Flight Path tells the amazing success story of the little airline that could, and of all the remarkable people who work there, who have kept the Canadian carrier profitable and expansive, quarter after quarter.

Not just the shrewd and entrepreneurial Clive Beddoe and his three co-founders (known as the Big Shots), but all the four thousand employees who know that this is their airline because they own a piece of it, through generous profit-sharing and share-purchase plans that have made many of them millionaires.

But this incredible journey has not always been a smooth one. WestJet has faced its share of crippling crises in its short history: a complete grounding for seventeen days, just six months into operation; the aftermath of September 11, 2001, that devastated the airline industry; and the fallout from SARS and international conflict, that sent the airline business spiraling further downward. Through it all, WestJet has spread its wings as an astonishingly successful, against-all-odds airline.

In this lively, behind-the-scenes chronicle, veteran business author Paul Grescoe records the rollicking story of WestJet&;s first eight extraordinary years. He reveals the enlightened corporate culture and management practices of this employee-first enterprise, and he shows by example how people in other industries can emulate its success.