TORONTO - A steady lineup of passengers, with worrisome looks on their faces waited to ask questions to WestJet staff at the Terminal 3 departures corridor at Toronto’s Pearson airport on Saturday afternoon. Without fail, anytime the lineup appeared to shorten after WestJet employees helped some of the passengers, the queue would build up again, creating a seemingly endless barrage of questions fielded by airline staff. Nearby, several clusters of passengers held onto luggage with one hand and had their cell phones up to their ear with the other as they waited to rebook their flights on WestJet’s customer service line. Scattered around them were some passengers who appeared to have gotten tired of standing, laying down with their heads on their backpacks or sitting up against a nearby wall. Among them is Jenni Kezema. It’s her wedding anniversary. She was supposed to be on a flight to Dublin to meet her kids, who were going to celebrate with her and her husband as a family. Instead, what was meant to be a quick layover between Regina and Ireland, ended up now being a place that they can’t escape. “It’s our 35th [anniversary] and our kids are waiting for us,” Jenni and her husband, Jerry Kezema, told CTV News Saturday. “I’ve never felt more stranded in my life than I do right now,” she added. “We don’t have a suitcase; we don’t have a hotel… I have kids waiting in Ireland for me right now.” “We’re stranded, we have nowhere to go and no way to get there,” said Jerry Kezema, who said they received 10 to 12 hours notice of their flight cancellation. The couple said that there is little to no hope that they’ll be able to get on a flight soon, or that they’ll have a hotel set up by WestJet for them to stay the night in Toronto. “They said they’re trying to find us another flight out, but when we talked to a manager over there, they said there aren’t any,” said Jenni Kezema, who added that when they asked for hotel rooms, WestJet staff told them there were none. “What financial price can you put on that? It’s time that we’re losing with our family,” said Jerry Kezema. WestJet began winding down operations Friday in preparation for roughly 4,400 flight attendants walking off the job Sunday. By late Saturday afternoon, the airline had announced 198 flight cancellations. The Calgary-based airline and the flight attendants’ union – CUPE Local 8125 – have not been able to reach a tentative agreement and are currently slated to go on strike by 12:01 MT Sunday. “This action is in response to the union’s notice to strike and the inability to reach an agreement. WestJet’s most recent proposal was designed to be a transformative, industry-leading agreement for WestJet’s Cabin Crew, and directly addressed the key issues the union identified as its priorities,” said the airline in a statement Saturday. CUPE spokesperson Lisa Lambert tells CTV News in an email statement that the “bargaining continues in earnest, in an attempt to avert a strike/lockout.” But that’s of little consolation to a young couple from Toronto who had planned a week in Cancun, until they found out their flight was cancelled. They’re not sure how or when they’ll be able to get to their resort with their room now sitting empty, waiting for them to arrive. “Do better,” said Ryan Dos Santos in his message to the union and the airline, after waiting on hold with WestJet for around 45 minutes. “It’s not fair to us as customers, as people who are wanting to enjoy our time, working hard to [take] a trip like this. It’s not fair.” Meanwhile some passengers, like Kaitlyn Brisebois and Cody Foreman, are trying to remain optimistic after their flight to Edinburgh was cancelled from Halifax, with the first leg of the journey from Toronto to Halifax still on schedule. “It’s no one’s fault, it happens,” said Foreman to CTV News Saturday. “They can’t deal with us here because we [booked] with a third party, so we have to call numbers and stuff. As long as we get taken care of, we’ll be alright.” “We just want to start our holidays,” said Briseboise. “Everything’s already booked out there, so we just want to get there. We can’t really get refunds on all those tickets either.”
