Headquartered in Calgary, Canada, WestJet was founded by a group of airline industry veterans in 1996, including Neeleman, who left to-start JetBlue shortly
thereafter. The company began with approximately 40 employee and three aircraft. Today, the company has 7,800 employees and operates 420 flights per day to 71 destinations in Canada, the United States, the Carib-bean, and Mexico. Earlier in this decade, WestJet under-went rapid expansion spurred by its early success and began adding more Canadian destinations and then U.S. cities for its flights. By 2010, WestJet held nearly 40 percent of the Canadian airline market, with Air Canada dropping to 55 percent.