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Mr. Pugliese said the airline is starting to get to grips with the arrival times. He said in the summer and fall, its on-time arrival figures were in the 70s, but have been hit hard since mid-November as de-icing procedures and other winter measures slowed operations.

He said the key to improving the performance is ensuring that Encore’s first flights of the day get off on time — even early.

The airline has also built some breathing room into the schedule by allowing more time for crews to turn aircraft around, and for the loading of passengers, which requires them to walk up stairs from the tarmac.

As the airline adds more planes, more flexibility will be built into the schedule to allow passengers to be moved onto a later flight, he added.

“I’m not concerned. We’ve been watching the operation closely. We know where the culprits are. We have corrective action plans in place,” Mr. Pugliese said.

The issues at Encore come on the heels of the troubled launch of WestJet’s premium economy seats, which led to conflicts between front line workers and passengers because the seats with larger legroom were not adequately differentiated from the rest of the economy seats.

That issue has been remedied by properly demarcating the premium seats.

Ben Cherniavsky, Raymond James analyst, said the issues WestJet is facing with Encore highlight the execution risks inherent in any such venture.

“There’s so many ways you can get execution wrong,” he said. “All of these seemingly little things could potentially become big problems as the operation evolves and become more complex.”

“The whole point is, you can’t underestimate how critical the simplicity of the WestJet business model in its early days was to its success,” he added.