Hundreds of travellers are left looking for alternative options as 4,400 WestJet flight attendants went on strike this morning.
WestJet and their roughly 4,400 flight attendants are at loggerheads with top issues at the bargaining table including wages and unpaid ground work.
A handful of travellers lingered near the departure boards at Montreal-Trudeau International Airport on Sunday morning, many quietly refreshing their phones or speaking in low voices with airline agents.
Despite the uncertainty surrounding WestJet flights, the atmosphere remained calm with short lines at check-in counters and plenty of empty seats scattered throughout the terminal.
Mary Bulman, 37, said she and her partner decided to arrive early for their flight to Basel-Mulhouse, unsure of what to expect.
“We’re supposed to fly to Basel at 6:15 tonight,” she said. “WestJet told us not to do anything and to let them handle changes if the flight gets cancelled. But we came early just in case something shifts again. We didn’t want to take any chances.”
For some travellers, the disruption has already come at a cost.
Franki Galvez, 47, said his flight was cancelled Sunday morning.
“My flight to Toronto was cancelled, and they rebooked me in four days”, he said. “Now I’m stuck here, and hotel prices are around $500 a night. I’ve been trying to figure out if anyone managed to get rebooked on another airline instead.”
Matthew Pardy, 26, said he and his friends have been scrambling to find a solution to go back home in Chicago as prices continue to climb.
“We’re kind of stuck,” he said. “Hotels are about $400 a night, and we’d only get about $250 back from our travel insurance. Flights just keep getting more expensive every minute.”
He said they considered booking another flight, but worried they wouldn’t be reimbursed if they didn’t take WestJet’s rebooking.
“We called them and they told us to wait until Aug. 7, but we have work, we can’t just stay here that long,” he said. “Flights today were around $800 per person, and by tomorrow they’re even higher, by the 4th, they’re closer to $2,000.”
Pardy said they also looked into renting a car, but the logistics didn’t make much sense.
“It would be more than a day of driving with just the three of us,” he said. “At this point, we’re trying to figure out if it’s better to spend thousands on flights or on a place to stay.”
WestJet’s check-in assistance line was empty at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport on Sunday morning, which was overcast and rainy. Some customers were dropping off bags, but the airline’s check-in area was noticeably quieter than the day before.
Meshach Baba received an email from WestJet Sunday morning that his cancelled flight home to Orlando had been rebooked. Relieved, he said he took a nap in a corner during his long layover.
He woke up to see that rebooked flight was cancelled, too.
Baba, who is travelling back from the Philippines, said it’s been a hassle to look for updates from both WestJet and his third-party booking company.
“My biggest concern has been getting a hotel,” he said, adding he hasn’t received any offers to put him up while he waits for a flight home.
Lindsay Williams, also at Pearson airport, said he was trying to stay optimistic about his vacation to Canada and Mexico after the sudden death of his close friend.
Now he’s crushed to be losing days of his “once-in-lifetime” trip to Cancun that he had to rebook with another airline at a later date due to the strike.
Williams, who is from the United Kingdom, had been up since 4:30 a.m. on Sunday trying to secure a spot in the WestJet customer service queue, which quickly climbed to a seven-hour wait.
Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu called on the labour board to order Air Canada flight attendants back to work last year during their strike over wages and unpaid ground work.
