This is nonsense. I fly regularly on both, for a living, and work in the industry and have colleagues at both. WestJet has had multiple union drives that have barely failed, and it's only a matter of time before they too, are fully unionized. I suppose the attempts to unionize are an indication of how happy the employees are?

The main difference between the two is size and age of the companies. If anything, I've found Air Canada's service levels to have improved dramatically over the last ten years as they've adapted to the competition (look at their astounding financial performance since their crisis levels in 2008-09).

WestJet on the other hand, has grown and their service has suffered. Just as any company goes from being a little mom and pop operation to being a large operation, so does it suffer "big-company" problems.

But Canadians are stuck in this time warp where their perceptions are off by a decade or so.