‘This is bunk’: WestJet apologizes for dubious passengers about because it cancelled flights

In response to a CBC News investigation, WestJet has admitted it mistakenly told passengers that hurricane-related airfield restrictions had forced it to cancel Turks and Caicos flights.

The airline now says it indeed cancelled flights from Oct. 11 to Dec. 16 for business reasons. It’s currently contacting influenced passengers to apologize.

Patricia Mombourquette of Edmonton says she never utterly believed WestJet’s bizarre explanation. “I was questionable and didn’t feel that they were being upfront during all.”

She and 3 friends were set to fly from Toronto to Turks and Caicos on Nov. 8 to applaud her 50th birthday during a resort.

Patricia Mombourquette, second from left, and her 3 friends applaud her 50th birthday in Turks and Caicos. (Patricia Mombourquette)

On Oct. 15, a 4 women learned WestJet had cancelled their flight. Mombourquette complained to a airline and asked for compensation.

She was denied.

Instead, WestJet told her in an email that “due to repairs caused by Hurricane Irma,” that struck in early September, it had to cancel flights to Turks and Caicos. 

WestJet said its hands were tied because the internal airfield management had educated a airline to postpone use until Dec. 15.

Mombourquette suspicion a reason didn’t supplement adult given countless other airlines were still drifting to Turks and Caicos, including Air Canada, that requisitioned her and her friends after Westjet cancelled.

“It’s really consider that WestJet is a usually airline being told not to fly in,” she said. “I wanted to respond and say, ‘This is bunk.'”

Local airfield says it’s open

After conference Mombourquette’s story, CBC News contacted a Turks and Caicos Islands Airports Authority. It denied it was preventing WestJet from alighting during a general airport.

“I don’t know since WestJet would still be regulating that as an forgive when it’s not formed on fact,” spokesperson Lavern Skippings Reynolds said.

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According to her, Providenciales International Airport has been entirely operational given Sept. 11 with a disproportion of a one-day closure on Sept. 22 due to Hurricane Maria.

She says WestJet is the usually blurb airline that hasn’t returned to a airport. In fact, on Nov. 5, it even combined a new carrier, Southwest Airlines.

“The airfield is entirely open for business,” Skippings Reynolds said. 

Southwest Airlines’ initial day alighting during a Providenciales International Airport in Turks and Caicos on Nov. 4. (Ramon Andrews/Facebook)

Karen Lawson lives in Turks and Caicos and knew a general airfield was open when WestJet cancelled her Nov. 15 lapse moody from Toronto.

She forked this out to a airline, that replied in a Facebook summary on Oct. 16 that a airfield was still sealed to blurb airlines such as WestJet, and that it would resume use as shortly as it perceived permission.

Lawson didn’t buy it. She surmised that WestJet had cancelled flights given a vast Turks and Caicos Beaches resort, that had some whirly damage, isn’t reopening until Dec. 14 — one day before WestJet plans to resume use to a country.

“Don’t censure it on a whirly and don’t censure it on a airfield authority. That’s only not fair,” she said.

Karen Lawson says a categorical traveller areas in Turks and Caicos are behind to normal and welcoming guests. (Karen Lawson)

Lawson, who co-owns a licence debate company, was also dissapoint that WestJet was promulgation a summary that Turks and Caicos was still pang from a effects of Hurricane Irma.

She says a main tourist areas experienced minimal repairs and returned to normal operations within a few weeks.

“WestJet is opposition a ability to foster tourism,” she said. “I’m really unhappy with how they rubbed this. And we consider they indeed owe Turks and Caicos an apology. They owe their [customers] an apology.”

WestJet is now charity that reparation and an reason for providing business with improper information.

WestJet explains

The airline pronounced there were dual waves of cancellations for Turks and Caicos flights. The initial one started immediately after Hurricane Irma strike a island on Sept. 7. At a time, WestJet motionless to postpone use until Oct. 8.

The airline pronounced it afterwards motionless to cancel flights again from Oct. 11 to Dec. 16 given hotel partners such as a Beaches and Club Med had nonetheless to free for business.

• Read WestJet’s full response here

WestJet said it incorrectly told a second-wave passengers the same reason it had given passengers during a initial wave: that a airfield was shop-worn — a fact that was no longer true.

“This emanate was brought to a courtesy in late Oct and we immediately corrected a diction and a logic behind a termination in successive notifications,” WestJet orator Lauren Stewart pronounced in an email.

WestJet says it sent a second call of passengers a wrong summary about since their flights were cancelled to Turks and Caicos. (Darryl Dyck/Canadian Press)

CBC News asked Stewart about remuneration for passengers whose flights were cancelled for reasons unrelated to an airfield closure. She declined to comment. 

But on Friday, shortly after CBC received its response from WestJet, both Mombourquette and Lawson were contacted by a airline.

A patron use representative offered any of them an reparation and an offer to cover a cost disproportion for carrying to book on a last-minute, some-more costly Air Canada flight to Turks and Caicos.

Both women contend they appreciate the gesture, though still feel uneasy about how it all went down.

“I told [the rep] that we found it bizarre that no one from WestJet had reached out to me before to CBC investigating,” Lawson said. “I found that disappointing.”

Article source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/westjet-turks-and-caicos-airport-cancel-flights-hurricane-1.4407641?cmp=rss