Day 5 of Waterloo Region travellers trying to get home due to Sunwing delays, cancellations

CTV’s Spencer Turcotte has more from frustrated Sunwing travellers eager to get home.

Some Waterloo Region travellers have been waiting five days for their vacation airline to bring them home.

Sunwing resumed flights on Friday at Toronto’s Pearson Airport after days of cancellations, which had a ripple effect on flights at Waterloo Region’s airport (YKF) as well.

Some local residents have gotten home, but that’s only after their original Sunwing flight to YKF was switched to land in Toronto.

After several more delays, and the change in destination, some travellers decided they didn’t want to risk going back to the Punta Cana airport only to find out they may have to stay there another night.

Now they’re searching for other ways home from dream vacations that turned into a nightmares.

“Right now, we’re in the U.S. We’re in Fort Lauderdale,” said Elie Nafekh, who is part of a larger group that has been trying to get home from Punta Cana since Monday.

The airline announced earlier this week it was cancelling a number of southbound flights to free up planes and crew to get travellers home after delays and cancellations caused by weather and the plane crash at Pearson.

“We got an email and it just said your trip is cancelled altogether,” said Breslau resident Balazs Igli, who never got to fly out at all.

Passengers whose flights were cancelled have been promised refunds within 21 days.

But the ripple effects continue for those looking to fly into the Region of Waterloo.

Nafekh said they were getting ready to leave the hotel Thursday for a rescheduled Sunwing flight when they received a call from a Sunwing representative who told them the flight was delayed again.

“Everybody got quite frustrated again and said this is going to turn into the same thing, which eventually it did. People that did stay, they ended up getting caught there again last night,” said Nafekh, who is supposed to take a second flight from Florida back to Waterloo’s airport Friday night with Flair.

But as his group’s luck would have it, that flight was delayed a couple of times as of late Friday afternoon.

Yet, on day five of trying to get home, there is still something to smile about. He and some others he is travelling with watched Canada’s big win in the 4 Nations Face-Off final from a Florida bar.

“Well, the first goal, we were clapping modestly. After that third goal, we were just whistling and then caught ourselves,” said Nafekh, chuckling.

Those cheers may be matched just as loudly when their plane finally lands on Canadian soil.

There are still some Waterloo travellers in the Dominican who didn’t re-book with another airline, or take the chance with the flight that was re-routed to Pearson.

But at this point, some of them have run out of medication and they are running out of time before the situation becomes more serious.

Staff at YKF on Friday said they are unclear on when the next direct flight from Punta Cana to Waterloo will be.