Nothing is going well for Sunwing. The airline is plagued with complaints from customers who are considering taking the legal route to be compensated for expenses incurred due to delayed or canceled flights. Meanwhile, the company announces that it is suspending all flights from two Saskatchewan airports.
On the Facebook page called “Sunwing Complaints”, which has more than 5,000 subscribers, testimonials are piling up from customers of the airline who have seen their flight to or from a sun destination be delayed many times. times, sometimes for several days, before being simply cancelled.
Recently, the airline justified these flight delays and cancellations by extreme weather conditions. However, what the many customers contacted by The duty Thursday, it is mainly the lack of communication and organization of the company with regard to the many travelers whose vacation plans have been disrupted.
Federal Transport Minister Omar Alghabra himself on Wednesday called “unacceptable” the way Sunwing handled the consequences of these cancellations for its customers.
We were just canceled our flight and told it’s up to us to get back
“The situation with Sunwing Airlines is unacceptable, as Canadians rightly expect their airlines to keep them informed and manage disruptions accordingly. We expect all airlines to communicate with passengers and keep them informed of delays or cancellations,” added Minister Alghabra’s office on Thursday in a statement sent to the Homework.
Canadians are patient with weather disruptions, but they expect their airlines to keep them informed and manage these disruptions accordingly. I am very concerned about the current situation with Sunwing.
— Omar Alghabra (@OmarAlghabra) December 28, 2022
Sunwing, for its part, assured Thursday to work hard to try to remedy the problems encountered by its customers still stuck in sun destinations.
Our teams continue to work to reduce return flight delays and get our customers affected by these delays home as soon as possible. This indicates that it has planned “40 recovery flights this week”. Of this batch, 24 had been made as of Thursday. The company also ensures that travelers who have had their flights canceled will receive a refund.
A planned class action
Many travelers joined by The duty said they had to find a return flight on their own with another airline after Sunwing canceled their flight without offering them an alternative. However, the Air Passenger Protection Regulations specify that an airline must find a flight with a competing company if it is unable to provide the service itself to its customers within 48 hours after the original departure time.
“We were just canceled our flight and we were told that it was up to us to manage to come back,” says Marie-Christine Beaudoin, who turned to a competing company to fly from Miami to Montreal in the last days. “If we had stayed, we would have had to struggle to find a place to sleep,” said Camelia Fleseriu, who resigned herself on December 27 to buying a return ticket from Cancún to Montreal from Air Transat, Sunwing being unable to provide a way for her to return home with her seven-year-old daughter.
Many clients also believe that they should be compensated for the accommodation and travel costs they incurred while waiting. They were thus more than 260, as of Thursday evening, to have joined in a group created on the WhatsApp platform reserved for Sunwing customers wishing to initiate collective action against the company.
“I hope they will. It is completely legitimate to do so”, indicates Mehran Ebrahimi, professor at the University of Quebec in Montreal and director of the International Observatory of Aeronautics and Civil Aviation, about this possible class action. .According to him, “it is by doing things like that that we can improve our regulations and scare the airlines for the next crises so that they ensure respect for the rights of passengers”.
The president and founder of the Travelers Rights group, Gabor Lukacs, recalls for his part that the federal government has the legislative levers to impose hefty fines on air carriers who do not respect the rights of their passengers. “The problem is that the government does not impose these fines,” said Mr. Lukacs.
Sunwing takes a break in Saskatchewan
In a sign that times are tough for Sunwing, the airline announced Thursday the suspension, effective “immediately”, of its flights scheduled until February 3, inclusive, from the airports of Regina and Saskatoon.
“We are aware that, despite our best efforts, we have not been able to meet the expectations of our customers, and we sincerely regret not being able to achieve the levels of service that customers in Saskatoon and Regina are entitled, ”wrote the air carrier on its Twitter account on Thursday afternoon.
By e-mail, the company specifies that it has tried in vain to “meet the increase in seasonal demand for travel from Saskatoon and Regina by calling on foreign pilots during the winter period”. The company therefore finds itself having to cancel flights departing from these two cities.
We regret to inform our customers in Saskatoon and Regina that, due to extenuating circumstances, we are unfortunately canceling our operations from both airports. The cancellations will take immediate effect & apply to travel from both airports up to and including Fri Feb 3/23.
— Sunwing Vacations (@SunwingVacay) December 29, 2022