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The deal comes after Onex, a Toronto-based private equity firm, approached the airline in March.

“WestJet is one of Canada’s strongest brands and we have tremendous respect for the business that Clive Beddoe and all WestJetters have built over the years,” said Tawfiq Popatia, a managing director at Onex.

Photo by Canadian Press/Jeff McIntosh

In the past six years, WestJet has created both regional and budget airlines — WestJet Encore and Swoop — and set its sights on long-haul routes with an order for 10 Boeing 787 jetliners set for delivery before 2022, receiving the first one earlier this year.

“WestJet has been challenged by all this diversification that’s been crunched into this very short space of time,” said Robert Kokonis, president of Toronto-based consulting firm AirTrav Inc. “Shareholders were wondering whether WestJet could execute all these things.”

The airline’s ongoing transition from a low-cost regional carrier to a full-service international airline targeting higher-yield business passengers gives it potential that renders the premium reasonable, Kokonis said.

“Onex has very deep pockets… If that means WestJet growing faster internationally, acquiring more long-haul fleets to fly abroad, those are good things and that will create a positive pricing environment for consumers.”

This isn’t Onex’s first attempt to acquire an airline. Twenty years ago it teamed up with American Airlines parent company AMR Corp. in a hostile $1.8-billion bid plus the assumption of debt to acquire and merge Canadian Airlines and Air Canada. The plan was dropped after being ruled illegal by a Quebec court.