Maritime travellers scrambling amid flight cancellations, ongoing Air Canada strike

First at Five looks at how the Air Canada strike is impacting travellers with plans to fly into – or out of - smaller airports.

There were only two flights set to fly out of - and into - the J.A. Douglas McCurdy Sydney Airport on Monday, and one of each - Air Canada flights to and from Toronto - were cancelled.

The cancellations come after 10,000 Air Canada flight attendants chose to strike.

“Well, I’m stuck here now until Thursday night, with a redirecting flight which will bring me home Friday night,” said Michael Bergeron of Stanley Bridge, P.E.I., who spent the weekend in Edmonton at the Canadian Half-Marathon championship.

Bergeron was supposed to board an Air Canada flight home to Prince Edward Island on Monday.

That flight was cancelled Sunday night.

Now, he won’t return until four days later, which leaves his wife home alone with their eight-month-old son for the rest of the week.

“It’s hard,” Bergeron said. “I have a young kid at home and a wife that’s missing me, and I think an extra four days away from home really sucks.”

Monika Dutt is travelling from Cape Breton to Zurich, Switzerland with her 14-year-old son Kail.

“Right now, I have a flight that is scheduled to leave in seven hours, and I have not yet received official cancellation of that flight,” Dutt said on Monday afternoon.

The pair made it from Halifax to Toronto on a Flair Airlines flight and were supposed to fly to Europe with Air Canada but have decided not to risk it.

“Unfortunately, that flight - I’m assuming - won’t go ahead,” Dutt said. “I did, at a much greater cost, book another ticket early last week which leaves a few hours after my scheduled flight is supposed to so I’m in this strange place of not quite knowing when to leave for the airport and what flight I am going to get on. I assume it will be my backup flight.”

Air passenger rights advocate Gabor Lukacs said if an airline does not rebook someone within 48 hours of their original departure time, the onus is on them to buy the passenger a ticket with a competitor and cover associated costs like ground transportation.

“Passengers have a right to alternate transportation when their flight is cancelled,” Lukacs said.

He added that at smaller Maritime airports where there might not be many alternative flight options to Air Canada, there could be plenty of cases where the airline must pay.

“So, for example if from Charlottetown you have a passenger who has no other flight from Charlottetown but Air Canada, then Air Canada might have to buy them a ticket from Moncton or possibly Saint John or Halifax,” Lukacs said.

In an email, a spokesperson for the Saint John Airport said they are in a similar situation as the McCurdy Sydney Airport - that their Toronto flights are affected, but flights to Montreal are operated by Jazz and are flying as usual.

Before boarding her flight to Zurich, Dutt said that despite the stress it has caused her she has taken a stance on the issue.

“I do fully support the flight attendants,” Dutt said. “Honestly, I didn’t know much about their work conditions until the media of the last few weeks.”