WestJet is shuttering Sunwing. What that means for the cost of your next flight

WestJet's reported plans to wind down Sunwing Airlines as well as low-cost carrier Swoop could mean higher prices on airfare for Canadians, experts warn.

WestJet Group’s decision to shut down Sunwing Airlines barely a week after announcing plans to give its low-cost brand Swoop the same treatment is bad news for Canadian air travellers, according to experts who spoke to Global News.

They say consumers could see fares fly higher with fewer brands competing for business.

Some are pointing the finger not at WestJet but at the federal government for clearing the runway for the western airline’s consolidation at the expense of competition in Canada’s increasingly concentrated aviation industry.

WestJet’s deal to acquire Sunwing was approved by Ottawa in March and formally closed in May. But the plans are now to wind down the Sunwing brand over the next two years, according to an internal memo obtained by the Canadian Press.

Global News reached out to WestJet to confirm the report but did not hear back on Monday.

The disappearance of Sunwing-branded planes, alongside the Swoop jets that will be folded into WestJet’s primary fleet by the fall, will likely hit Canadian air travellers when they try to book flights in the months to come, says Toronto Metropolitan University’s Frederic Dimanche.

“The main issue is probably going to be that there will be fewer options, obviously fewer flights on fewer brands and probably a higher price,” says the tourism and hospitality professor.

While the changes are largely internal, Dimanche says bringing together three disparate airline operations under a single banner means operating the flights under the WestJet cost structure — not the low-price model that Swoop offered, for example.