By Gerald V. Paul
As WestJet is running things in the Caribbean, with plans to land in Guyana, they have enjoyed healthy passenger demand heading into 2013 as they reported record load factors for December.

“We are very pleased to close out the year with six consecutive monthly load factor records and record high loads in all four quarters,” an enthused President and CEO Gregg Saretsky revealed. He stressed that the Calgary-based airline’s forward bookings continue to be strong.

Congrats are in order as WestJet carried substantially more passengers with modest increases to capacity. WestJet said its load factor for December hit a record 81.9 per cent while Air Canada hit record load factors for the month and the year.

WestJet’s passenger traffic in December was up 7.2 per cent from a year earlier, rising to 1.5 billion revenue passenger miles from 1,5 billion on a 6-per-cent increase in capacity.