WATERLOO REGION – Not one, not two, but three Canadian airlines blindsided Alaa Sacre on the same day she struggled to get her family home from their vacation in Mexico.
She’s about $2,500 out of pocket after airlines put her family through two canceled flights and a long delay that resulted in an overnight layover.
“What happened is a disaster,” the Hamilton woman said, arguing the federal government needs to do more to protect passengers. “I dealt with three airlines the other day and they all weren’t interested in us.”
Here’s what happened.
Blindside No. 1: After a week of vacation, Sacre, her husband, their young child, and her mother left their resort at 7:30 a.m. on January 1 and headed to the airport in Cancun, Mexico.
There they learned that Flair Airlines had canceled their 11:52 a.m. return flight to Waterloo International Airport in Breslau.
Flair explained via email at 8:04 a.m. that it had canceled the flight “due to aircraft damage at the airport under airline control, but necessary for safety.” Sakr was not told that the ground equipment crashed into the Flair plane at Breslau airport before it flew to Mexico to pick them up.
Flair tells the family he can’t bring them home until January 15th. The airline will not accommodate them in a hotel. The family is without travel insurance, has daycare and work commitments, and can’t afford to wait two weeks in Mexico.
They look for another way home, but find no other flights to Breslau airport that day.
Blindside No. 2: The family is looking for same-day tickets to Pearson International Airport in Toronto. They see four Air Transat seats, but the $5,000 price tag is a lot more than the $2,200 they spent on Flair return flights.
Online, they find four same-day tickets on Swoop Airline for $1,400. They book tickets immediately because the flight leaves soon at 11:40 a.m. At 10:11 a.m., Swoop confirms their tickets by email.
They pay $40 to take a cab to another airport terminal. It’s only five minutes away, but they don’t have time to wait for free transportation.
Upon check-in, they find other Flair passengers lined up for the same Swoop flight. They are then told that Swoop has canceled the flight. It is now too late to catch the Air Transat flight to Toronto.
Blindside No. 3: Finding no more direct flights to Toronto, the family booked four seats on Air Canada departing Montreal at 2:40 p.m. They were booked on a connecting flight to Toronto at 9:30 p.m. after a three-hour layover in Montreal. Tickets cost $3,300.
They change terminals again, but are told that Air Canada has delayed takeoff until 6:45 p.m. The flight attendant later tells them that the plane has no crew to fly it.
The four-hour delay means they will miss their connection to Toronto. Now they have an overnight stay in Montreal. Air Canada is putting them on a 7am flight to Toronto on January 2nd. He doesn’t offer them a hotel room.
The family boarded the plane in Cancun around 6 p.m. and waited longer on the tarmac before the flight finally took off. It is almost midnight when they arrive in Montreal.
Fortunately, the family has relatives in Quebec who can pick them up at the airport and put them up overnight. Shortly after midnight at the Montreal airport, Sacre rescheduled their connection to Toronto to the afternoon so they could catch up.
The family flew on January 2 from Montreal to Toronto. They hire Uber to take them to Breslau airport, where they pick up their parked car a day late. They go home to Hamilton.
It took me 36 hours through three airports to get home. Their tired little one keeps throwing tantrums. People have been asking the family how their holiday was.
“We can’t remember anything good about the trip because it ended badly,” Sacre said.
Sakr received refunds from Flair and Swoop for canceled tickets. That leaves the family facing about $2,500 in additional costs.
Flair regrets canceling his flight to Breslau, but cannot return the family earlier than Jan. 15, spokesman Mike Arnault said.
“The next Flair Airlines return flights were quite full and so the option given to the family was the earliest the airline could accommodate them on their return,” he said. “No hotel accommodation is provided in this situation.”
Asking passengers to wait two weeks for a return flight complies with Canadian regulations because Flair is classified as a small airline. However, a claim may be made for compensation under international aviation rules.
Sakr believes Swoop sold her four seats after she canceled her flight, based on her recollection of the events in Cancun. She wants the airline to be penalized for this.
Swoop says he canceled his flight to Toronto eight minutes after selling seats to Sakr. “We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience,” spokeswoman Julia Brunet said. She did not say why Swoop canceled the flight.
Air Canada did not explain why it delayed its flight to Montreal, requiring an overnight layover. In a statement, the airline said it complies with all passenger regulations, works directly with customers and cannot comment on a specific case.
Sakr is considering a complaint with the Canadian Transportation Agency, which enforces passenger rights. There are 33,000 cases backlogged.
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