COVID 19: Canada's WestJet and Onex work to weather the storm

A little more than a year ago one of the largest private equity deals in the history of aviation emerged, with Onex Corporation outlining its plans to purchase Canada’s second largest airline WestJet. 

It was one of the more surprising developments in the industry during the last few years, and WestJet had concluded that going private would allow it to focus more on its long term strategy, rather than being at the mercy of short term demands from analysts and investors. 

Of course the world has changed dramatically during the time since, and Onex and WestJet had no way of predicting the COVID-19 pandemic, and the benefits they hoped to achieve from the deal are being pushed off into the future. And for now, they are just attempting to withstand the devastating effects of the pandemic on the worldwide aviation industry.