WestJet, headquartered in Calgary, says it is taking a "highly calculated" approach to maintaining services this summer, which includes a lighter summer travel schedule announced earlier this year.

The airline shared details of its summer travel strategy on Thursday, a day after Air Canada announced it would cancel flights "to avoid a shortage of customer service."

According to a statement on its website, WestJet said it was scheduled to operate 21 percent less capacity in July this year compared to July 2019.

The company wrote, "Our proactive efforts have been fundamental to our summer planning, and when comparing our current capacity to 2019 levels, where we operated more than 700 flights daily, this summer we will operate 25 percent fewer flights, averaging approximately 530 flights per day."

Some additional steps WestJet has taken to improve guest experiences include hiring additional staff, ensuring guests are notified in advance of any schedule changes, and providing technology to speed up check-in options among other efforts.

The news of flight changes comes as Canadians look forward to traveling during the long weekend in early July, or what WestJet calls the "busiest travel weekend" since lifting COVID-19 restrictions.

"We have been working closely with our partners at airports, service providers, and the federal government to mitigate challenges."

Alexis Von Hoensbroech, CEO of WestJet, says the situation is "unusual and unprecedented." He said: "The pandemic has been devastating for the entire industry.

The industry was down to less than 20 percent of normal demand for more than two years." "Now we are seeing a huge rebound in demand, which is good on one hand but it is not surprising that this is now causing operational challenges we are currently dealing with."

He says these challenges are happening worldwide and regrets any inconvenience it may cause to Canadians traveling. "I can completely apologize like many other airline CEOs as well because this is a very difficult time as demand recovers.

"It’s not just airlines, there are many, many parts of the travel chain dealing with the same challenges whether it is airports, suppliers, or government agencies.

If one part of this chain is not successful, you will see a ripple effect throughout the entire chain." And for more information on WestJet flights, including schedules and flight status, you can visit their website.