What was supposed to be a dream vacation is turning into the nightmare before Christmas for one Saskatchewan family, thanks to air travel frustrations. Dionne Sproat and 13 other family members from Kipling, located roughly 150 kilometres southeast of Regina, were excited to go on the first trip as an extended family. “This would be just a really special thing for us to do with our family,” Sproat said after months of planning went into the holiday. Taking icy highways to the Regina International Airport, excitement and anticipation grew as the family prepared to take off. Boarding was delayed, but eventually everyone made it on the flight. There was a delay before the pilot first announced a delay. Then more time went on before another update. Finally, a flight attendant addressed the plane saying the flight was cancelled and told everyone to get off and retrieve their luggage. “To sit on a plane for an hour and have it canceled — and you know, truly Canadian. When they said that, not a person on the plane said a thing. There was no grumbling,” Sproat said. Air passenger rights advocate Gabor Lukács, who operates a website dedicated to raising awareness of rights and the capabilities of enforcing them against airlines, says Canadian politeness can get the better of passengers sometimes. “One of the few countries where almost weather has a too much of a social acceptance as an excuse,” Lukács said. From there, Sproat and her family had difficulty getting answers from WestJet. Agents at the airport told her to wait hours for email updates. Calls to the customer service line either went unanswered due to call volume or had her family waiting an hour or longer for a response. Once updates arrived, WestJet began offering alternatives to get to Cancun in a timely manner, but the family was split up. Some would have had to travel 24 hours to get to Cancun with connections through Seattle, Denver and Los Angeles offered. The family opted not to accept the offers with their one-week stay in Cancun now turning into three days. “Our idea was we all go down together, or we don’t go at all,” Sproat said. Working with a travel agent until 2 a.m. the following day, Sproat and her family were able to pay out of pocket and book a separate trip, this time leaving on Christmas Eve and arriving back in Regina on New Years Eve. If that fails, there’s no other backup plan. “The first thing we’re going to look for is a polka band to see if they can take us down,” Sproat said, referring to a scene in the Christmas classic film Home Alone. “But no, actually, I don’t know. We literally don’t have a plan. I’ve been joking around with a couple friends saying we’re going to crash for Christmas.” In an email to CTV News, WestJet said the flight on Dec. 19 was cancelled due to weather in Regina. All guests were offered re-accommodation flights to Cancun. Lukács says outside of weather events, passengers are entitled to compensation if they accept an accommodating flight or not. But he says airlines tend to be vague in their reasoning, leaving passengers unsure if they’re able to make a claim in the first place. “The biggest problem today is not simply refusal to pay, but refusal to provide meaningful, detailed information and correct information that they are required to provide by law to allow passengers to make an informed decision on whether to pursue their claim further,” he said. Lukács further warns not to take an airline at face value and always ask questions if you aren’t satisfied with a response. Providing justification for a flight cancelation is a requirement, such as where the weather occurred and how it impacted the flight, for instance. “Even weather is not a free get out of jail card,” he said. He says if the airline doesn’t provide clear information, take them to small claims court. While that’s an unlikely scenario for Sproat and her family, she says whatever happens next; her family will experience it together. “That’s all we want to do is be together, but we would prefer to be down in Cancun, where we’ve now paid for twice,” she said.
