Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Let me begin by thanking members of the committee for the invitation to appear today. We encourage all parliamentarians to take an interest in commercial aviation, given how critically important it is to our communities from coast to coast to coast.
There are some issues this committee can assist with in budget 2016, and I will get to them, but first I would like to provide a bit of an overview of our growth in investments and the challenges we face in 2016.
On February 29, we'll proudly be celebrating our 20th anniversary of operations. On that day 20 years ago, our route map consisted of three airplanes and five cities. We had roughly 200 employees, all of them taking a chance by coming to work for a small western start-up airline. At our headquarters in Calgary there's a wall that lists all of the airlines in Canada that have gone bankrupt. It's a big wall. In fact, the average lifespan of an airline in Canada created after 1990 is 3.5 years. Not only did we buck that trend, we have flourished, to the benefit of Canadians. In 1996, only 16% of Canadians took a flight on an annual basis. Today that number is over 35%. Our record of market stimulation has been profound.
Today our numbers are a tad improved; with nearly 12,000 employees, we have 600 flights a day. In 2015 we flew over 20 million guests for the first time. Our fleet consists of approximately 145 aircraft, ranging from Bombardier Q400s, manufactured at Downsview in Toronto, to Boeing 737s. Our new wide-body 767s will begin service to London's Gatwick Airport this May from five Canadian cities, including Winnipeg, which I note because it will be that city's first transatlantic flight since 2008. This is the kind of critical connectivity we are bringing to Canadian communities.
Given that we're discussing the upcoming federal budget, I would like to comment on the current challenge we face as an Alberta-based airline.
We have felt the effect of a softened demand and sluggish economy. About 25% of our entire system capacity originates in Alberta, and over 40% of our overall system capacity touches Alberta. This led in January to a temporary shifting of some of our capacity from the west to central and eastern Canada. Overall our growth will continue this year with new services and new destinations, but we are closely monitoring the situation in our home province.
We continue to take costs out of our system. This is a major challenge and focus. In 2015 our overall profit was $368 million. This translates into roughly $18 a guest. This number of $18 a guest is not something widely understood, and it informs our perspective on how we see the role of government in our sector.
Our industry is eagerly awaiting the release of David Emerson's review of the Canada Transportation Act. We have made a thorough submission that covers every aspect of commercial aviation, but for the purposes of this committee, I'd like to highlight what we see as the number one issue that government can address.
For WestJet, aviation cost structure is the single most important public policy issue facing commercial aviation going forward. It limits our ability to fulfill our role as an overall economic catalyst for the economy, consumers, and communities large and small. We find ourselves increasingly undermined by escalations in either the cost to access airport infrastructure or in charges applied to consumers to support facilities and government services. We believe the cost gap to be widening, thanks to a rigid adherence to the uniquely Canadian user-pay principle for aviation services, which is used to justify everything from steadily increasing airport improvement fees to an air travellers security charge that is exponentially larger than the U.S. equivalent.
We recommend that this committee recognize the stimulative nature of our investments on the Canadian economy and recommend in its report that the government make aviation cost structure a priority issue. We are seeking the establishment of a senior level government-industry working group to take a close and focused look at the competitiveness of commercial aviation in Canada.
I would also like to note we are in support of the recommendations made by our industry association, the National Airlines Council of Canada. Specifically, we would welcome increased funding to CATSA, but more than that, we are asking that revenue the government collects from the air travellers security charge be tied directly to funding for screening services.
Also, continued streamlining of border processing and security screening at our airports is becoming increasingly important for our sector to compete overall. We would also welcome government's support in these areas.
Thank you for your time and consideration this afternoon. I'd be pleased to take your questions.