'A terrible tragedy': 4 dead in another multiple-fatality B.C. crash
A crash in Keremeos, B.C., Wednesday morning is the latest in a string of fatal collisions, this time claiming the lives of four people, Mounties say.
Passengers booked with Lynx Air were left scrambling to replace cancelled flights after the ultra-low-cost airline announced Thursday evening that it is ceasing operations after filing for creditor protection.
All flights scheduled Monday, Feb. 26 or later are cancelled, effective 12:01 a.m. MT. The Calgary-based company has advised passengers with existing bookings to contact their credit card company to secure refunds for pre-booked travel.
The airline said it was unable to overcome compounding financial pressures associated with inflation, fuel costs, exchange rates, cost of capital, regulatory costs and competition in the Canadian market.
“It is with a heavy heart we leave the skies,” Lynx said in a statement on its website.
“We hope in our absence that our vision to inspire more Canadians to fly leaves its mark on our passengers.”
But some travellers said Friday morning that chaos had already begun three days before the airline is officially set to shut down.
Sal Saied was supposed to fly from Toronto to Los Angeles around 9:30 a.m. on Friday, but said she received an email from Lynx stating the trip would be delayed over an hour. She was at the gate about to board the plane at 10:45 when there was an announcement that the flight was cancelled altogether.
“We lined up to get ready to board, then they actually told us to step back down and about five minutes after they told us that our flight was cancelled,” she said.
“They told us to essentially leave the airport.”
Saied, who found a replacement ticket at an “extremely high price,” described the situation as a “fiasco.”
“It's really frustrating,” she said.
Jean-Francois Turcotte and his girlfriend were planning to fly to Las Vegas from Montreal next Friday for a five-day trip with 12 of their friends, but Lynx's announcement has left them hurrying to find another way there.
The couple had booked their departing flight on Lynx along with a return flight on Air Canada through Bookings.com. Turcotte said he has now looked into cancelling the whole vacation, but was told Bookings.com wouldn't reimburse their Air Canada flights.
“From what they've been telling us on the phone, there's no impact on the return flight and we have to take the return flight even though we don't have an outgoing flight anymore,” he said.
“It's just a matter of deciding if we're cancelling the trip altogether or if we are just buying a very expensive last minute ticket to still go on the trip.”
While they initially paid about $250 each way per person, Turcotte said tickets to Las Vegas next week appear to be north of $1,000 at this point.
Meanwhile, he said his girlfriend's credit card company informed them they have to dispute the charge for their cancelled Lynx booking, a process which would then take 14 days to determine an outcome.
“Basically nobody has the answers now about what to do,” he said. “So we have to act not knowing what's going to happen.”
WestJet said it was ready to help mitigate some of the issues for travellers. The airline said it will offer discounted fares for stranded domestic travellers and capped fares for Canadian repatriation flights on non-stop WestJet routes previously served by Lynx.
All economy cabin fares that meet that criteria are eligible for a 25 per cent discount between Feb. 22 and Oct. 26, as long as the booking is made by next Thursday.
“We are communicating closely with government officials and supporting agencies that are also working to address the needs of those impacted,” WestJet said in a statement.
Natasha MacLean, who was travelling to Halifax on Friday to visit family, said she received an email around 10 p.m. on Thursday informing her that the return flight she'd booked through Lynx 10 days from now was cancelled.
Speaking at Toronto's Pearson airport, she said she booked a new return flight at double the cost.
“This is my first time flying with Lynx and I'm not impressed with customer service and the late notice,” she said.
“Very stressful, a lot of anxiety and disappointment.”
Beyond the immediate impact to be felt by travellers, the Air Line Pilots Association International said 160 pilots and flight crew will be affected.
As of the end of last year, Lynx Air employed approximately 500 employees - 390 in Alberta and 110 in Ontario, according to an affidavit filed Thursday by interim chief financial officer Michael Woodward in the Court of King's Bench of Alberta.
The document said Lynx operates a uniform fleet of nine Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft.
National Bank of Canada analyst Cameron Doerksen said in a note that Lynx's closure illustrates the challenges of the low-cost carrier model in Canada, given higher airline industry costs than other countries and a limited number of large routes that are already served by other airlines.
Doerksen said one of the financial backers of Lynx was Indigo Partners, a successful private equity investor in numerous low-cost airlines globally.
“The fact that even with the help of an experienced investor, Lynx Air was unable to have success with its ultra-low-cost model strategy and was also unable to source additional capital to sustain its operations speaks to the challenges any startup airline faces in Canada,” he said.
“We would not be surprised to see other rapidly growing airlines' growth plans scaled back.”
He added Lynx's exit from the market should have positive implications for the larger carriers in Canada, including Air Canada and Air Transat.
- With files from Maan Alhmidi in Toronto
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 23, 2024.
A crash in Keremeos, B.C., Wednesday morning is the latest in a string of fatal collisions, this time claiming the lives of four people, Mounties say.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he continues to have 'full confidence' in Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland, but he's also been talking to Mark Carney about entering federal politics.
A Manitoba judge has found confessed serial killer Jeremy Skibicki guilty of four counts of first-degree murder, determining he was not suffering from a mental disorder when he ‘mercilessly’ killed four Indigenous women.
Former child actor Benji Gregory, who played the young boy on the 1980s television sitcom 'ALF,' has died in suburban Phoenix. He was 46.
A Calgary woman is facing charges for the death of her dog, which died after being left in a hot car on Canada Day.
On Thursday, Environment Canada issued weather alerts for 10 of the country's provinces and territories. Here's where warnings are in effect.
Shelley Duvall, the intrepid, Texas-born movie star whose wide-eyed, winsome presence was a mainstay in the films of Robert Altman and who co-starred in Stanley Kubrick's 'The Shining,' has died. She was 75.
Multiple earthquakes were recorded off B.C.'s coast Thursday morning, but no tsunami is expected.
The world's population is expected to grow by more than two billion people in the next decades and peak in the 2080s at around 10.3 billion, a new report by the United Nations said Thursday.
Seven-year-old goalie Hudson Hardill is an unlikely Calgary Flames fan, being that he lives in Peterborough, Ont., and his dad Chris is a Toronto Maple Leafs fan.
A WestJet employee's chance encounter on a recent flight spiced up her life in a big way.
A Kelowna, B.C., man says he's always liked gnomes because they have a 'bit of mystery' to them. And he recently got a taste of that whimsy when his garden gnomes disappeared, and came back to him in a peculiar fashion.
After more than 50 years, Toronto's iconic 'Leslieville dollhouse' will soon have a new owner.
One man is bringing a blast from the past to a Winnipeg community.
Some say a photograph is simply a memory frozen in time – and a high school graduation photo taken in Churchill, Man. takes that adage to a completely new level.
A rising track and field star overcame a big hurdle in his dream to represent Canada at the Olympics.
Would-be homebuyers who backed out of a deal to purchase a B.C. property in a hot real estate market have been ordered to pay the seller the difference between what they offered and what he was able to sell the home for when the market cooled.
Ottawa city councillor Tim Tierney has waited decades for the chance to meet his rock-star idols Nickelback.