Sunwing Vacations’ Andrew Dawson on the newly released winter schedule and building back trust

With the launch of its 2023-2024 winter season, Sunwing Travel Group’s president of tour operations, Andrew Dawson is in an upbeat mood. In conversation with Travel Courier, he makes it clear that: “The value of our travel advisors remains of paramount importance to all of us at Sunwing and we look forward to working closely with them, and keeping the lines of communication open, as we gear up for our busiest winter season since pre-pandemic. We’ve only just begun.”

You’ve just launched your 2023-2024 winter program and it comes with some significant capacity increases. Can you outline what some of the indicators are that you’re seeing in the market that make you confident that 2023-2024 will be a strong winter season?

Indicators point to a successful winter season. We are having an impressive summer season and are already seeing very strong demand for upcoming travel from gateways across the country. We expect that demand will only intensify as we approach the cooler winter months and more Canadians are looking for the ease that an all-inclusive vacation provides.

Can you talk about what you see as some of the highlights of the 2023-2024 program? What’s going to surprise travel advisors and their customers about Sunwing’s new offerings this winter?

First and foremost, we are excited to be returning to pre-pandemic travel levels and to grow overall capacity for Canada by 15% over last winter’s program, with flight service from 23 Canadian gateways to 26 sun destinations (including new Cuban additions for this year for Toronto and Montreal, Cienfuegos and Manzanillo de Cuba). We’re also very pleased to further our commitments in key regions including Atlantic Canada, the Prairies and Quebec, and provide more travel options to our customers in each of these areas.

There are significant increases in capacity out of both Atlantic Canada and Western Canada. I’m wondering if you can talk a bit about the importance of those regional markets to Sunwing’s business?

Maintaining our longstanding footprint in Atlantic Canada, Western Canada and the Prairies is incredibly important to us, so we are thrilled to continue offering convenient direct flight service from gateways across these regions for this winter. 

We also have some notable growth in these regions – this includes 26% growth in capacity for Atlantic Canada and 24% growth in Western Canada and the Prairies combined, with more direct service from airports including Fredericton, Halifax, Gander, Regina, Saskatoon and Winnipeg. 

Now everyone is aware of the disruptions of last winter, and I’m not interested in going back over that ground, what I’m interested in is to ask you how Sunwing has been rebuilding trust with travel advisors and their customers? Can you give me some examples? What’s the message to advisors, particularly advisors in some of those regional markets? 

We have learned a lot from past weather-related events, and one immediate action we took coming out of last winter was to leave a bit of breathing room in the schedule to account for potential weather events and enable the airline to reposition aircraft or crew in those situations. That is something we have also implemented for this winter’s schedule. In addition, communication is so key to fostering greater trust with travel advisors, and we are committed to open and proactive communication to continue rebuilding their trust and to work together to deliver on a very successful winter program.

Naturally, I want to ask you about WestJet’s acquisition of Sunwing Airlines and Sunwing Vacations and whether you can offer an update on where things are at with that? Do you have any details you can offer? 

It remains business as usual post-acquisition and we are delivering a Sunwing winter schedule this year, with a robust assortment of Sunwing Vacations packages available to Canadians across the country. The winter flight schedule is being planned by Sunwing Airlines and flown on WG flight numbers. On routes or date ranges where there aren’t Sunwing flights, we will also continue to offer “E-Packages” with scheduled seats available from WestJet and other scheduled airlines.

As we look ahead to the eventual airline integration, in future Sunwing Vacations will be in a position to further expand its sun leisure offerings across WestJet’s extensive network on a year-round basis, providing Canadians with even more opportunities to travel to their preferred sun destinations.

So, if you had a roomful of travel advisors in front of you, what’s the key message you’d want them to take away about Sunwing?

The value of our travel advisors remains of paramount importance to all of us at Sunwing and we look forward to working closely with them, and keeping the lines of communication open, as we gear up for our busiest winter season since pre-pandemic. We’ve only just begun.

Ramping up for Winter 2023-2024

Sunwing Vacations got an early start on winter last week as it rolled out its 2023-2024 winter line-up, featuring flights on Sunwing Airlines from 23 airports in Canada to 26 destinations in the Caribbean, Mexico, Central America and the United States. The tour operator has ramped up its winter capacity by 15%, with additional lift to Cuba, Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Orlando. It will also be offering packages to both Cienfuegos and Manzanillo de Cuba from Toronto and Montreal.

Sunning is also expanding its offerings to Pacific Mexico with programs to Los Cabos, Mazatlán and Puerto Vallarta, plus additional options to Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic.

Broken down by the numbers, highlights include: 

• 23% growth in capacity for Cuba, supplemented by a marked expansion in flight service to Cayo Largo along with the new additions of Cienfuegos and Manzanillo de Cuba
• 26% growth in overall capacity for Atlantic Canada, including a significant lift (more than 30%) in each of Fredericton, Halifax and Gander
• 24% growth in overall capacity in Western Canada and the Prairies combined, including more flight service from Regina, Saskatoon and Winnipeg, regions where Sunwing has a longstanding presence and continued commitment to providing its customers with affordable sun vacations
• Sunwing Airlines is also ramping up its recruitment efforts, hiring for pilots and seasonal cabin crew positions across the country for the upcoming winter season.