Back in 2018, WestJet announced a major rebrand as part of their
ongoing transition into a full service carrier.
That included the introduction of a Business Class cabin on their new 787s,
upgrades to their 737 Premium seats, among other changes.
These enhanced premium services though, wouldn’t be complete without their own lounge,
and for a while now, there’s been a fair bit of construction near Concourse B at Calgary Airport.
This week, after two years in the making,
WestJet finally revealed what they call their flagship Elevation Lounge!
HANNAH FAIRWEATHER: Really, this lounge features a number of sort of cohesive environments,
we thought very carefully about what our guest's needs will be and those change, right, from day
to day or from journey to journey, so there's a great deal of thought into not over-engineering
and providing really the things that matter, the things that make the difference, and then we've
also looked to go further and I'd say that that comes through the interior design, through all
those immeasurable things that come together to really create a warm and welcoming environment.
We wanted to maintain our approachable, our caring core,
those things are very key for us in creating a refined experience, it's not as simple as
adding in the classics, you know, we needed to do a lot more than that.
So inside this lounge there's the open market area,
culinary experience for us is very, very important.
We actually are offering a table service right now
we had planned for the culinary experience to be where the guests can enter the market area,
they can choose their choice for that time of day, and they can also have a
conversation with the chef and maybe choose something from the chef's table selections.
In this case, in this environment now, we wanted to create reduced physical
touch point environments so we have introduced a table service so guests
can sit down at any of our tables, they are geofenced, so we know which table you're at,
and this way you can order through your app and it's completely contactless.
We also have two wellness areas, and this is because our lounge is
accessible for domestic and also international guests.
So, in this case, we're conveniently located at the B concourse, we're on the Link stop,
so what our guests can do is clear the B or C security checkpoints,
they can join us here in the lounge, and then they can take the Link or walk down to the D
concourse where their international flight would depart, so you're not clearing security twice.
The lounge officially opens to the public on November 2nd, with free access for Silver, Gold,
and Platinum WestJet Rewards members, along with all passengers booked on a Business Class fare.
Priority Pass and other lounge programs are also eligible for access,
and you can pay an entry fee if you’re traveling in Economy.
This is a pretty big step for WestJet - previously, they had been using a
contract lounge in Concourse A, which was nice, but not nearly as nice as this!
So, we wanted to create spaces that you could really rest and relax and spend a little bit of
time with us, so the seating is carefully chosen with high sides so you can feel a bit of privacy,
and it's longer, so you can put your feet up and really sit back.
We do have expansive airside views across the front of our lounge,
you can see the Rocky Mountains, the foothills, you can see the city, and of course you can see
the aircraft and people walking by, so it's a very nice place to sit and relax.
We have a meeting space facility, as well as two showers so that our guests
can book those facilities if they are spending a little bit more time with us.
You can have a fully functioning meeting in our space, outside of Covid it would seat six guests.
There is a screen in there so you can present
from your own laptop, there is also HDMI and USB cables built into the seating.
We have a family space, that was a particularly important space for us,
we wanted to ensure every guest, even our youngest, has a sense of place.
It strikes the balance between still being a place that an adult might want to spend some time,
but it's playful and there's some interesting interpretations of
both WestJet and our land in there to entertain children.
In addition to that, our horseshoe bar.
This is a very intentional, it's a vibrant social bar, it's right in the heart of the lounge.
The intention of the horseshoe shape is to really feature our bartender, again it's
about having a conversation, sharing a story, we've put a lot of focus on
the culinary experience so our beverages have been crafted by mixologists, we have a locally
sourced selection of beers we have an Elevation beer on tap,
which we're very proud of, it's by Dandy Brewing Company from here in Calgary,
so we've really made an effort to show breweries and distilling companies that are local to us.
Personally, I think it looks fantastic, and I’m definitely
looking forward to traveling through here when things get back to normal!
The location is certainly interesting,
too - They essentially expanded into the pre-security area near the food court,
and although the views aren’t directly out the windows, it is an effective use of space.
Well, in sourcing a space this is really our flagship lounge, we have every intention in
continuing this story, and building out our ground experiences across the airports that we serve,
and being the flagship we needed to think very carefully about the amount of space
that we could offer, we wanted to feature all the things that we have, you know, and you need
a certain amount of physical space, so we worked very closely with our partners at Calgary Airport
Authority and they provided us this location as an option, and it certainly was the best.
So, we've been really bringing it down through to the core and then building it
back up over the last couple of years, so it has been a long construction project for us,
because we wanted to be able to feature these very intentional areas like our horseshoe shaped bar,
our entry area was very important to us, so, I think we've achieved all those things!
Big thank you to WestJet for inviting me out to get an early look at this
beautiful lounge of theirs, and thanks very much for watching.
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