Travellers in Winnipeg scramble to rebook flights as WestJet attendants reach tentative deal

WestJet flights were back in the skies Monday after a brief flight-attendant strike grounded planes across the country. But even as their cancelled flights were rebooked, many travellers spent the holiday scrambling to adapt to new, altered plans.

By 11:30 a.m. about 200 people were queued up in front of WestJet’s check-in booths at Winnipeg Richardson International Airport. Many were there to check in for an afternoon flight to Toronto, which, along with most other WestJet flights for the day, was now listed on the departure board as proceeding as planned.

Others, unable to reach someone on WestJet’s apparently overburdened customer service hotline, were hoping to find a solution to altered travel plans that had delayed their travel by days, or in some cases rerouted them through other cities.

Dan Schenkeveld was among them. The Kamloops resident spent most of the past month on a deep wilderness canoe trip in Nunavut. When he got back in cellular service range, he learned that a WestJet flight attendant strike was looming: “We’re aware of the issues around unpaid work, and we’re compassionate to that,” he said.

He soon learned his flight out of Winnipeg had been cancelled and rebooked for three days later. He had not yet been given information about being compensated for accomodation. After having no luck getting through to WestJet customer service by phone, he decided to come down to the airport to see he could fly standby, or be sent on another carrier.

(In Canada, if a flight cannot be rebooked within 48 hours of the original departure time, large carriers are required to offer passengers booking on another carrier.)

“Earlier, the staff here were helpful, they were just unable to provide us any concrete information,” he said. “It would be great if I could just wait, somebody’s not going to show up for their flight.”

Elsewhere in the queue, Calgary’s Alistair Viegas and Allie Mills were waiting to speak to an agent, hoping they could simply cancel their rebooked flight. The couple had expected to fly from Calgary to Toronto on Sunday morning; after that trip was cancelled at 2 a.m Sunday, they were rebooked for a different itinerary over a day later.

Instead, they drove to Winnipeg, where Mills has relatives, and found a cheaper Porter flight to Toronto.

“We didn’t even know if the strike would be over when they rebooked us,” Mills said.

The brief strike began when flight attendants walked off the job early Sunday morning, having been locked in new contract negotiations with the company since January. One of the chief issues at the bargaining table was how staff are compensated for work done while the plane is still on the ground.

The action forced WestJet to ground all its flights. But by Monday morning, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents about 4,400 West Jet flight attendants, announced it had reached a tentative deal, and that flight attendants were returning to work.

After that chaos and uncertainty, some travellers were just glad to be back on their way.

Winnipeg’s Christopher Bautista and his family were looking forward to visiting relatives in the Philippines when the strike threw their plans into chaos. They were rebooked to head out on Monday morning, but instead of their original plan which routed through Vancouver, they would head first to Toronto, where they will have to stay two days.

While they still weren’t sure what would happen, Bautista said, “The good thing is, we’re going.”

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca

With files from Canadian Press