Tag Archives for westjet.
The plane skidded on its nose gear, left main gear, and the right engine nacelle, which sparked and produced smoke. Emergency services deployed fire-retardant foam. Everyone evacuated via slides. The runway was closed, causing flight disruptions, as authorities dispatched heavy equipment to remove the disabled aircraft.
What I’m most impressed with here is the pilot. Video of the incident starts after things had already gone sideways, and the pilot had to step in. He didn’t leave it to cabin crew, making a removal decision but staying in the cockpit. He came out and handled the situation.
A woman with Montezuma’s Revenge was kicked off a WestJet flight leaving Mexico as it prepared to take off. Journalist Joanna Chiu kept going to the bathroom during the plane’s boarding process, and crew decided that she made one too many trips to fly.
WestJet says customers will get travel credits, and since it may be years before they return to a customer’s city they “will extend the travel credit expiry date” beyond 24 months. WestJet may never return to some cities, may never return with service that works for a customer, and years into the future the name of the game is breakage. Indeed, customers may actually die while waiting to use their WestJet credits.
Yet the airline “notes the Canadian Transportation Agency has deemed acceptable given the realities of COVID-19” to offer flight credits and not refunds. Perhaps this brazen move will challenge that earlier guidance.
Despite airline requirements, customers continue to flout the rules. And one passenger did so with enough of a flair for the dramatic that his flight actually diverted.
The U.S. government is clear that airlines must refund passengers whose flights are cancelled. The European Union is clear on this too but airlines have ignored their rules. In fact, European airlines have offered refunds to Americans (or where itineraries touch the U.S.) but not for Europeans (travel that doesn’t touch the U.S.).
Canada had been clear that airlines do not have to refund passengers for cancelled flights. Fortunately they are backtracking from that position.
The union that represents flight attendants at Canada’s WestJet Airlines expects layoffs “of more than 50 per cent of its staff.”
Airlines have an incentive to blame factors beyond their control for delays. If the cause is weather, air traffic control, or a similar issue they’re going to owe customers a lot less (if anything at all) compared to when a delay is ‘controllable’ or their fault — such as when a flight goes mechanical or when crew simply don’t show up. (EU rules are somewhat stricter.)
Customers can be sitting at their home airport and will get frustrated when they’re delayed by weather only to look out the window at blue skies, knowing weather is clear at their destination.
WestJet flight WS2425 was sitting stationary on the tarmac in Toronto after arriving from Cancun last night when it was hit by a Sunwing plane pushing back from its gate at around 6 p.m. Eastern.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
