First Airline Chooses to Offer Starbucks Coffee

Metro News: With competition for business travellers heating up in the Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal triangle, Porter Airlines is hoping for results from an unlikely source: coffee.

The company announced Thursday a partnership with Starbucks, saying travellers will be served Pike Place coffee, the standard mild brand in many of the chain's outlets. Porter boasted it's "the first airline in the world to offer this exclusive brew in-flight."

Porter CEO Robert Deluce said this was a way "to provide our customers with a refined travelling experience." It remains to be seen whether a familiar brand of java will entice business travellers, as other airlines ramp up their own efforts to lure traffic.

Air Canada plans to begin service from Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport, Porter's base of operations, beginning May 1. And WestJet says that on May 2 it will start offering 10 flights each business day between Toronto and Montreal and nine flights between Toronto and Ottawa.

The WestJet initiative — which also includes an offer to guests of 50 per cent off their next Toronto-Montreal or Toronto-Ottawa flight if their aircraft is delayed by more than 30 minutes — is "aimed at addressing the needs of our valued business travellers," Bob Cummings, the airline's executive vice-president of sales, said in a release Thursday.