‘Complete impunity’: WestJet rebooks flights eight days after cancellations

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On a frigid Saturday earlier this month, Mindy Watson realized that her household’s flight that day from Edmonton to Toronto, en path to Cuba, was cancelled.

WestJet provided to rebook their Varadero trip on Sunday — not the next day, however eight days in a while Jan. 21.

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“My spouse is Canadian navy and must be again on base at CFB Comox on Jan. 22,” Watson stated. Her daughter wanted to clock into her nursing shift the identical day, and one other member of the family on the journey — a veteran with disabilities — needed to be house for appointments.

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One agent informed her he was not allowed to e book them on one other airline, she stated, including that a number of representatives stated the identical.

They ended up scrapping the journey, a getaway the household had been trying ahead to for months.

Watson was amongst 1000’s of WestJet prospects whose flights have been cancelled amid an excessive chilly snap in Alberta earlier this month. And lots of say the airline wouldn’t reschedule them throughout the required window, in what one advocate framed as simply the newest instance of a failure to uphold travellers’ rights.

If a provider has to name off a visit for causes exterior its management — extreme climate, for instance — Canada’s passenger rights constitution requires it to rebook passengers by itself planes or these of a associate airline inside 48 hours. If it may’t, it should put them on board “the subsequent obtainable flight that’s operated by any provider” to achieve their vacation spot.

The Canadian Press has spoken or emailed with greater than two dozen passengers who say they weren’t rebooked throughout the prescribed timeframe — a lot of them for WestJet journeys scheduled this month, however others for flights over the previous couple of years throughout a number of airways.

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Calgary-based WestJet says it rebooks prospects, together with with rival airways, in accordance with federal guidelines, together with in the course of the interval of maximum chilly that disrupted flights like Watson’s.

“We perceive how irritating it’s when journey doesn’t go as deliberate throughout excessive climate occasions and are dedicated to our company and guaranteeing their secure and expedient journey,” spokeswoman Madison Kruger stated in an e mail.

“We sincerely apologize to our company who have been impacted by the acute climate occasions of the previous week, however security will at all times be our first precedence,” she stated.

Kruger stated the airline rebooks with various totally different carriers.

“WestJet books reaccommodation flights on associate and non-partner airways throughout irregular operations for home and worldwide flights in compliance with the (passenger rights constitution) and in sure circumstances as a gesture of goodwill.”

Recordings of telephone conversations between passengers and WestJet brokers counsel that isn’t at all times the case.

WestJet cancelled Winnipeg resident Kelly Regula’s connecting flight again house from Toronto on Jan. 12. In recordings of her telephone conversations with airline brokers shared with The Canadian Press, firm representatives say they have been barred from reserving her on one of many a number of Air Canada flights apparently obtainable that Friday, slotting her right into a Monday departure with WestJet as a substitute — effectively over 48 hours later.

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Regula wound up reserving a visit with Air Canada for herself, her husband and baby at a value of $2,855.

“It’s simply not proper,” she stated. “However I can see why folks simply quit. It’s exhausting.”

Ashley Armstrong, whose Saskatoon-Orlando flight was additionally cancelled by WestJet on Friday, Jan. 12, was rebooked for the next Wednesday even after she highlighted different journey choices.

“There’s an Air Canada flight that travels on Sunday, and so I don’t perceive why we couldn’t get booked onto that flight,” she informed the agent the subsequent day, in accordance with a recording she made and shared with The Canadian Press.

“I’m unable to do interline stuff. I can solely take care of WestJet,” he replied.

Requested about Armstrong and Regula’s experiences, WestJet stated it had forwarded their recordsdata to its visitor crew for assessment to make sure the airline’s insurance policies have been correctly utilized.

Some passengers stated carriers knowledgeable them of a cancellation by e mail and {that a} message on rebooking choices would observe — but it surely by no means truly landed of their inbox.

Even when it does, prospects can spend hours ready — on the telephone or in individual — to attempt for a unique reserving.

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Colin MacRae known as the quantity given to make alternate preparations after his Toronto-Calgary flight on Dec. 23 was cancelled and he was rebooked on a flight three days later.

“After being on maintain for over six hours, we have been requested if we wished for a callback. We stated sure, we’d. They then scheduled their ‘earliest doable callback,’ which was for 8 a.m. on the thirtieth of December — the identical day as our scheduled return flight,” MacRae stated.

Some prospects, like Regula, merely rebook with one other airline themselves and hope to reclaim the price from the unique provider later. This requires filling out a kind on the airline’s web site and ready 30 days for a response. If it’s denied, passengers can file a grievance with the Canadian Transportation Company, a course of can take as much as two years as a consequence of a backlog of about 64,000.

Gabor Lukacs, president of the Air Passenger Rights client advocacy group, says he believes airways have been failing to satisfy rebooking necessities since they got here into power in 2019.

“I consider it’s very widespread, and it’s one of many prime examples of airways blatantly sabotaging the (laws) with full impunity,” he claimed.

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To emphasize the laws’ intent, he pointed to a 2022 federal impression evaluation stating “that enormous carriers must rebook the passenger on the subsequent obtainable flight of any provider, together with opponents.”

The Canadian Transportation Company must crack down on rule breakers, he stated.

Fines have shot up from a complete of $725,000 in 2022-23 to $1.17 million to this point this fiscal 12 months, which ends March 31.

However that tally is a drop within the sea of income that carriers earn every year — Air Canada alone took in $6.34 billion within the first 9 months of 2023. And the penalties have been unfold throughout overseas and home airways, in addition to railways.

The company’s enforcement crew tracks complaints to scan for a sample of violations, and appears to impose fines when it sees an issue as “systemic,” stated Tom Oommen, the company’s director common of study and outreach, in an interview.

“To date, we haven’t discovered that but,” he stated of rebooking violations.

The company plans to ratchet up its most fines by an element of 10 as a part of an overhaul to the passenger rights constitution later this 12 months, Oommen stated.

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Over the previous 4 years, the regulator has issued a complete of $16,700 in fines for breaches round rebooking. All 30 situations concerned WestJet and Sunwing — since purchased by WestJet.

The 2 carriers will not be the one targets of buyer ire. Final week, a B.C.-based tour operator launched a $28,000 lawsuit towards Air Canada, aiming to recoup cash it spent on taxis, accommodations and flights when 31 British Columbians discovered themselves stranded in Toronto after heading off for a two-week tour of Newfoundland in June 2022.

The airline provided to e book the passengers of Wells Grey Excursions three to 5 days after the cancellation, in accordance with the submitting. Not one of the allegations has been confirmed in court docket and Air Canada didn’t reply to a request for remark in regards to the go well with.

As for Mindy Watson, after calling off their Cuban getaway and rebooking a flight again house to Vancouver Island for Jan. 14, the household was once more hit with a cancellation and rebooked for 3 days later.

“We couldn’t incur any extra bills,” she stated. “We’ve got been trapped in Edmonton for days, ready to see if as we speak’s reserving truly occurs.”

That flight too fell by means of. They lastly touched down in Comox, B.C., at 3 a.m. final Friday — practically per week after they tried to go away on trip, with out ever taking one.

This report by The Canadian Press was first revealed Jan. 25, 2024.

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