The journey from Jordan to Calgary was already going to be a long one for Safaa Bahar. The WestJet strike made it that much more challenging.
Bahar, who’s trying to get to Alberta for work, has been stuck in Montreal and doesn’t know when she’ll be able to board a plane next.
“I came here yesterday to talk to people in the desk,” she said. “But I waited in the line for almost one-hour-and-a-half, and after that I talked to one person, and they told me, ‘yeah, we cannot do anything, we don’t have answers, and all you have to do is, you need to find a hotel by yourself. We don’t know any hotels, most of them are full.’ So I stayed here for three hours trying to find a hotel, trying to find anything.
“I don’t know where to go. I don’t have no one in Montreal and I don’t know if I have enough money to book another hotel.”
RELATED: WestJet, CUPE reach tentative deal as passengers scramble amid flight disruptions
Bahar was told there’s a flight leaving for Calgary on Tuesday and another on Thursday – but she doesn’t know which one she’ll be on.
“‘We don’t know which one you’re gonna get,’” Bahar said she was told by WestJet. “And I have work tomorrow, so I don’t know what I’m going to tell my employer.”
Bahar was one of many travellers at Montreal-Trudeau Airport Monday feeling stranded and unsure what to do next, despite WestJet and the union representing some 4,400 flight attendants reaching a tentative deal to resume work after a brief work stoppage.
Flight attendants walked off the job early Sunday morning after failing to reach a new contract with the airline. WestJet then grounded all flights on a long summer weekend across much of Canada, disrupting an estimated 300,000 passengers.
There was no word on when the airline would be able to resume its normal operations and schedule, but flights were slowly starting to resume by Monday afternoon.
Still, passengers were frustrated as they scrambled to change their travel plans at the end of the long weekend.
Among them was Tushar Landge, who flew from India to Qatar to Montreal, only for the final leg of his journey – Montreal to Toronto – to be disrupted.
“I’m hoping, keeping my fingers crossed that I get to fly today so that I can join my work because I’m already late for a day,” Landge told CityNews.
Landge spent nearly $200 for a hotel in Montreal Sunday night and some $50-$60 on food. WestJet helped with some food coupons, Landge said.
“But yeah that is not enough,” he said.
“The customer service call number is not working at all. They are not letting to go in and then whoever we are talking here was not having that sufficient knowledge from the back end side. So it was just like on spot whatever they can give
“I think that the information, the clarity was lacking and that’s why with a flight for almost 20 hours, it was difficult for me to cope up with that kind of situation.”
That feeling of being abandoned by WestJet’s customer service was echoed by other travellers.
“No support, no customer service, no text, no nothing,” said one person travelling to Costa Rica. “I cannot even talk to someone on the phone or even on chat. It says, ‘too busy, cannot answer.’”
“My last destination Calgary, I have to go back, since yesterday I’m here suffering,” added Arzou Ahmed. “They wouldn’t include the hotel and they’re telling me stay here. Do you think I’ll stay here until tomorrow? That’s not fair.”
Advocates say passengers affected by the strike generally aren’t entitled to meals or hotel stays under Canada’s air passenger protection rules. But if WestJet doesn’t provide a meaningful rebooking within a reasonable time, travellers may be able to book another flight themselves and seek reimbursement from the airline.
“The onus is on the airline to contact the passenger and say, ‘here’s your new itinerary’” explained Gábor Lukács, the president of Air Passenger Rights. “And that has to be a real itinerary. What WestJet has been doing during the strike is giving people illusory itineraries on another WestJet flight, which was bound to be cancelled as well. That’s not a real rebooking.
“If WestJet does not have anything else but business class, they have to rebook you in business class. The law says next available flight.”
At Montreal-Trudeau Airport, staff confirmed WestJet’s service counters were set to reopen Monday afternoon.
“The carrier now is attempting to restart the airline and to get flights that have been planned for, I’m gonna say tomorrow, hesitantly, get them up and running and be able to operate those airplanes,” said John Gradek, a faculty lecturer of operations and integrated aviation management at McGill University.
“It does take time to get the airplanes fired up and maintain properly. They need to have the crews, the pilots in place, they need to have the flight attendants in place. So there’s a lot of repositioning that has to take place in order for the schedules to be fully operational.”
CUPE, the union representing the airline’s workers, says the tentative deal would improve compensation by recognizing more of the work flight attendants perform and will now be put to members for a ratification vote.
But until then, the agreement isn’t final, and if members reject it, the bargaining process could resume and another strike remains a possibility, leaving passengers once again in limbo.
–With files from The Canadian Press
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