Revenue grew 8.6% year over year during the quarter to $967-million, the company said, noting that it expects the momentum to continue in the second quarter with strong traffic growth and "earnings amongst its best ever for the second quarter" as it moves toward the launch of its new low-cost carrier, Encore, June 24. However, as part of its quarterly earnings announcement, WestJet reported a 3.5% decline in its load factor – or average amount of seats filled on its planes – in April to 82.7% as its capacity growth of 7.4% outstripped the growth in traffic of 3.2% for the month. While investors interpreted that as a negative sign of things potentially to come, WestJet Chief Executive Gregg Saretsky saw things a bit differently. "Sounds like a buying opportunity to me," he said on a conference call.