WestJet's inaugural St. John's-Dublin flight takes off Sunday

The first transatlantic flight for WestJet is set to depart from St. John's heading to Dublin, Ireland on Sunday, and the CEO of the airline says the company was blown away by the initial sales.

Gregg Saretsky was in St. John's on Friday attending a Board of Trade luncheon.

Saretsky said the customer response to the service was excellent.

"Frankly, we knew that there was going to be strong demand for this market, but what I was really excited by was some of the stories of Newfoundlanders saying, 'Well, I'm getting married, I was looking for a place to honeymoon, and my gosh, I can get to Dublin for less money than to get to Deer Lake,'" he said.

Saretsky said the airline will also expand with WestJet Encore, a regional service with smaller planes that will fly out of Toronto at the end of June.

The service is expected to be available in Atlantic Canada in 2015.