The private equity owners of WestJet, a company called Onex, had called on him to lay out his strategy for Canada’s second-biggest carrier.Īnd Hoensbroech found a very similar scenario to something he had seen in Germany earlier, a true deja-vu: “WestJet had started 27 years ago as a classic low-cost carrier in Western Canada, modelled on Southwest Airlines.
But he felt he needed more entrepreneurial freedom in his decisions, rather than having to function in the large hierarchy of one of the world’s biggest airline groups.įrom 2018 he had been CEO of Austrian Airlines, part of Lufthansa Group, based in Vienna, leaving at the end of 2021. Hoensbroech had a high-profile career at Lufthansa Group and was seen as a possible successor for long-time CEO Carsten Spohr. My wife wanted to turn right back,” he recalls in an exclusive interview with Airlineratings.
“I had never been to Calgary, and I first came here only after signing on as CEO of WestJet in January 2022, when we landed it was minus 35☌ outside. Canada’s Westjet is defying the industry and making long-haul low-cost work and in this exclusive interview finds out how!įor Alexis Count of Hoensbroech, a German noble family with a long tradition, it was a jump into cold water.
