Saskatchewan travellers in limbo after July long weekend WestJet strike
The aftermath of the sudden WestJet mechanics strike over the long weekend is being felt in airports across the country.
According to WestJet, roughly 100,000 passengers across Canada had their travel plans thrown upside down by the strike.
In Regina, things are slowly starting to get back on track.
“Between Friday and Monday night we saw about 22 cancelled departures which is really double when you consider the arrivals,” James Bogusz, CEO of Regina airport said.
Bogusz said the strike happened on one of the busiest travel weekends of the year.
“They had to take a fleet, which is typically around 180 aircraft, and they had to wind it down to about 30 planes on very short notice,” he said.
He went on to say the strike impacted a few thousand people traveling out of Regina over the weekend.
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One of those frustrated customers is traveller Montana Getty who said her flight home from Toronto on July 1 was cancelled, costing her both time and money.
“The night before, we got a cancellation notice at 11:55 pm while we’re sitting at a bar celebrating our friend’s marriage and we found out that our new flights were booked for Thursday,” Getty said.
“We had to book our flights for a day later than we were expecting to come home for double the cost.”
She said the cancellation of flights ended up costing her another $1,200 to get home to the Prairies.
WestJet requires people to wait 72 hours before filing for flight reimbursement — leaving Getty in limbo.
Bogusz recommends signing up for automated notifications as WestJet works to get their operations back to normal.
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