WestJet warns of delays impacting 'multiple airlines,' caused by outage concurrent with CBSA issue

Passengers walk past Air Canada and WestJet planes at Calgary International Airport in Calgary, Alta., Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2022. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh

One of Canada's major airlines warned customers to expect delays due to two system outages reported on the same day.

In a series of messages posted to social media Wednesday, WestJet said it was "experiencing delays network-wide" due to an issue with its booking partner, Sabre.

Writing on the platform "X," formerly known as Twitter, WestJet said these delays impacted more than just its own customers, as "multiple airlines" were affected.

In an email to CTV News Calgary, a spokesperson said that the outage affected several airlines that use the same service.

"In addition, concurrent with this outage, we were made aware that (Canada Border Service Agency) was experiencing a system outage which compounded the delays experienced by our guests," Julia Kaiser said in an email.

The Alberta-based airline did not provide details on the scope of the impact, beyond noting delays, so it was not clear how many flight delays were due to the outages.

In Toronto, it appeared that at least 21 flights were delayed Wednesday, but it is unknown how many of those delays were related to the Sabre issue.

On the West Coast, Vancouver saw 12 incoming or outgoing WestJet flights delayed as of Wednesday morning. Several flights involving other airlines were also delayed, so the true number may be higher or lower, depending on the cause of each delay.

Of the WestJet flights into and out of Montreal, all were marked as "delayed" or "revised time," other than two departures scheduled in the evening that did not yet have a "state" posted.

On the YYC website, most WestJet flights into and out of Calgary International Airport seemed not to be impacted, or to only be experiencing minor delays, but some flights didn't show a revised time or status, and at least one was cancelled.

In an update hours later, the company directed those with such questions to a website with customer service numbers.

WestJet posted that the issue had been resolved shortly before 3 p.m. EDT.