Winter weather wreaking havoc on passengers at YQR

Air travel challenges at YQR WATCH: Brianne Foley reports on how travellers are being impacted by delays and cancellations at the Regina airport.

Holiday travel can be one of the most stressful times especially when flights are delayed or cancelled, which has been a reality of late for many Canadian travellers, including those in Regina.

“There are thousands of people going through the same thing, there are other seniors in the same boat,” Jody Reid told CTV News. Reid is trying to get her parents from Moose Jaw to Edmonton.

They were supposed to be on a 10 a.m. flight on Tuesday, but after hours of delays, their WestJet flight to Edmonton was eventually cancelled.

Reid said her parents do not have a cell phone and without the kindness of a stranger they would not have been able to contact her. A gentleman named Tyler loaned them a phone and a lady named Holly shared and paid for a cab back to Moose Jaw.

She added that her nerves are shot as her mother has health problems, while her step-father collapsed at the airport Tuesday and an ambulance was called.

“I almost lost my mom this summer and my step-dad with has dementia. I thought I better get them out here this year because he might not have another Christmas where he remembers any of us,” she said emotionally.

Reid said she called WestJet customer service three times to explain her situation and got hung up on. She called the number provided for cancelled flights and was told by a recording that she would hear back from someone on Monday.

She finally booked them on a flight Wednesday at 1:25 p.m.

“It was just the email online, ‘we’ve changed it, accept this flight you’… can’t get through to talk to anybody.”

Reid had to pay an extra $110 to arrange a car service to bring them back to Regina from Moose Jaw for their flight.

And as she said, they were not alone.

On Wednesday all WestJet Calgary flights were cancelled at YQR, which wasn’t great for Damola Adeyem.

“They just announced the flight has been cancelled and to go to the counter and see what we can do,” he said, adding he has a connecting flight as he’s trying to get home to Nigeria. “It’s supposed to be in Calgary at 5:30 pm, with KLM to Amsterdam.”

By 6 p.m. Wednesday every flight coming in or leaving Regina was either delayed or cancelled, including four delays already for Thursday morning.

Tammy Kyrylchuk, another WestJet passenger, landed in Regina at 5 a.m., without her luggage.

She spent all of Tuesday travelling, starting at 5:55 a.m. in Montreal, flying to Toronto and then to Calgary.

“Tempers were high when we got to Calgary, but it was smooth, the staff and everything was doing the best that they could, my start was fine, I got through Toronto alright and then we got to Calgary and that’s when things got a little stalemate,” Kyrylchuk said.

Kyrylchuk said the terminal was changed then they had to wait for a new crew and no one at the WestJet counter communicated to them that a winter storm hitting Vancouver was causing delays and cancellations.

The winter storm impacted flights across the country, especially given the state of airlines at this time.

“There’s a limited number of crews, airlines are short on pilots, it’s really bad in the U.S. but it’s also a challenge here in Canada. So at a busy time like Christmas they don’t have the extra capacity and pilots and crews to add more flights,” Justin Reves, manager of customer experience with the Regina Airport Authority said.

Regina being a smaller airport, felt the implications of a depleted industry very heavily on Tuesday and Wednesday.

“This time of year is so much busier and it’s hard for them to re-accomodate and move passengers around in smaller airports like Regina, planes come in pick people up and go back out and so if the planes are delayed or cancelled there’s no planes coming in to get passengers back out,” Reves said.

Reves said it’s airlines who control the flights and crews and baggage, so while operations at YQR were not impacted by the extreme cold weather, the flights coming were the issue.

He said that YQR has upped their Wi-Fi speed and that all their restaurants are staying open help make the wait more comfortable for those dealing with delays.

Kyrylchuk is still missing her luggage that was put on a plane in Calgary, another issue with travel. But she said that’s not a reason to lose your cool at the people trying to do their job.

“Screaming at the personal [is not] going to get us there faster, we just have to be positive.”

She said she called the police in Calgary because a man was berating the check-in agent.

And while she said that behaviour is not acceptable, she does wish the airline personal were updated with information from other provinces and airports so they could address customers accordingly.

As of 7 p.m. central time, Reid was home with her mother and step-father, but that flight was delayed leaving by over an hour as well.

A winter storm is expected to hit the Toronto area starting Thursday and continuing into the weekend, so those travelling should check with their airlines as more delays are probable.