Rosbif, you should also includes mechanics, cabin crew, crew skedulers among others who are also laid off with the TRZ/WS agreement. We were told this agreement was done to fly out of smaller cities that a widebody can't fill in, so instead of loosing market, they decided to use WS. And remember TS doesn't have much aircrafts left : only 14 now (compared to 21 back in 2001). So to fullfill the demand of the transat tour ops they had to find another alternative.
With all due respect CGTSN, your co-workers were not laid off because of the Transat/Westjet agreement. Your co-workers were laid off because of the after-effects of 9/11. Transat was losing millions of dollars and your company didn't know when that would end.
Laying off your co-workers, retiring some older aircrafts, and contracting Westjet was the only way to guarantee the survival of Transat and Air Transat. The current agreement between Transat and Westjet has been extremely beneficial to both companies.
But we had all noticed they also operated out of our main gateways ( YUL YYZ YVR) while on the other hand we had people being laid off...WS is way cheaper to operate than a TS crew+a/c.
Westjet is doing flying that Air Transat either couldn't do profitably or couldn't do with the size of aircraft it operates. It doesn't matter whether Westjet operates out of YYZ or YLW, as long as the route is profitable for your parent company, Transat, that's all that matters.
I would assume that Westjet will be doing some transatlantic flying for Transat to smaller destinations that Air Transat can't serve profitably with its 310/330 fleet. A 737-700/800 is not going to replace an Air Transat 310/330 on YYZ-LGW, so I don't think there's going to be anything to worry about.
If you are so upset with Westjet doing Transat flying, why aren't you asking your company why Air Transat isn't growing internationally? Do you feel that as Transat and Westjet grow closer a possible interline/codeshare agreement could be put in place? Westjet could feed its transborder/domestic flights into Air Transats international network and vise versa.