Sunwing flies final flight
This marked the end of an era in Canadian aviation, and by 29 May 2025 the airline had been fully integrated into WestJet.
Sunwing Airlines Inc. was a Canadian low-cost…
May 30, 2025
This marked the end of an era in Canadian aviation, and by 29 May 2025 the airline had been fully integrated into WestJet.
Sunwing Airlines Inc. was a Canadian low-cost airline headquartered in Toronto, Ontario with its main bases at Montréal–Trudeau International Airport and Toronto Pearson International Airport.
Sunwing was established in November 2005 by Sunwing Vacations, Canada’s second largest tour operator and also the largest provider of tourist flights to Cuba, sending over 700,000 passengers there every year. Sunwing began operations with a single Boeing B737-800, which flew a service from Toronto to Santiago de Cuba.
In Canada, Sunwing Airlines operated several domestic routes, including Toronto to Vancouver which operated daily, as well as maintaining year-round service to its most popular destinations. In the winter months the airline offered scheduled and charter services from Canada and the United States to destinations within the United States, the Caribbean, Mexico, Central and South America.
The Boeing 737 was the backbone of the airline, with Sunwing operating 104 different B737-800s and seventeen B737-8s over the years. In 2012, the airline also briefly tested the feasibility of widebodied jets for its operations, wet-leasing two Boeing 767-300ERs from EuroAtlantic. Though the trial was deemed succesful, Sunwing never acquired its own widebodied airliners.
In May 2023, WestJet announced that it would acquire Sunwing and integrate the Canadian low cost carrier into its own operations. Initially a subsidiary of WestJet, Sunwing fully merged with its new parent on 28 May 2025.
At the time of the final merger, Sunwing operated eight Boeing 737-800s and a single Boeing 737 MAX 8. Not all of these have yet been repainted into WestJet’s livery.
