The Globe and Mail reports in its Wednesday edition WestJet's surge in capacity is raising fears of a renewed industry price war. The Globe's Guy Dixon and Brent Jang write the carrier will launch its regional unit Encore in late June, just as Air Canada introduces its new low-cost leisure carrier Rouge this summer. Such extra capacity has the potential to corrode profit margins, if airlines are unable to fill the extra seats or have to slash ticket prices to do so. Analysts pushed the company on the capacity question during a first-quarter conference call, in which WestJet unveiled record earnings. Despite those results, the share price of WestJet fell $1.85 to $22.87 Tuesday in Toronto. Air Canada's stock price also fell sharply. WestJet is stoutly defending its expansion, with chief executive officer Gregg Saretsky saying the economy will be strong enough to support the additional capacity. "So we're putting a little bit of our foot to the accelerator because of the continued strong macroeconomic environment and the results that we're enjoying," Mr. Saretsky said during a call. He said the airline ran its planes too full last year, giving up potential customers it could have won had there been more capacity.