The Globe and Mail reports in its Monday edition that low oil prices and healthy passenger growth are expected to boost second-quarter earnings for Air Canada and WestJet. The Globe's Mark Rendell writes that both companies will release quarterly financials Tuesday. Over the past several weeks, most analysts have been revising their earnings estimates and stock-price targets upward. That follows an early July announcement from Air Canada that it carried a record number of passengers over the Canada Day holiday weekend, and that it expected its second-quarter EBITDAR to "significantly exceed" the analyst consensus at the time of about $475-million. (EBITDAR is earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, amortization and aircraft rent.) Bank of Nova Scotia analysts now estimate Air Canada's second-quarter EBITDAR will be $547-million, while BMO analysts put that number at $567-million. On the upper end of the spectrum, analysts for financial-services firm AltaCorp estimate that Air Canada will see an EBITDAR of $586-million. For WestJet, Scotiabank and BMO raised their EBITDAR estimates to $212-million and $196-million, respectively. The most significant factor in the earnings growth is low fuel prices.