Air Canada and WestJet maintain supply growth targets as unit revenues trend down

Canada's two major airlines have adopted divergent - but ultimately converging - paths during the last few years to lay the foundation for expanding margins and ensure sustained positive financial results. WestJet has opted to create a product mix to attract a higher percentage of business travellers while attempting to avoid alienating its core cost conscious customer base. Air Canada has decided to increase its reach among leisure passengers.

Overall, each airline's respective strategy appears to be paying off in the form of solid returns, margin expansion and increased profitability. But both airlines in the short term are facing unit revenue and yield pressure for different reasons.

Similar to most US airlines, WestJet and Air Canada continue to deliver strong top-line results even if unit revenues remain under pressure. But if oil prices, which are slowly ticking upwards, suddenly start to rapidly rise, Canada's airlines may need to revisit their capacity projections as overall supply in some regions is exceeding GDP growth.