Porter, Transat Not Planning Flight Cancellations in Wake of Air Canada News

 

“We have been meticulously planning for summer operations and over the past few months have proactively reduced capacity to ensure we can deliver a stable operation,” WestJet officials said. “We have been very measured in our approach, and are currently scheduled to operate 21 per cent less capacity in July 2022 than we did in July 2019.

 

“Our proactive efforts have been foundational to our summer planning and when comparing our current capacity to that of 2019, where we operated more than 700 flights a day, this summer we will operate 25 per cent fewer flights, averaging approximately 530 flights a day.

 

Air Transat has not received any requests to reduce flights and does not anticipate any cancellations at the moment,” spokeswoman Marie-Christine Pouliot said in an email.

 

“We intend to operate the summer flight schedule as planned,” Porter spokesman Brad Cicero wrote in an email. “Billy Bishop (Toronto Island) Airport is running relatively well compared to larger airports, and we have resources in place for the period.

“It will be a busy time, with a comparable number of passengers to 2019,” Cicero said.

WestJet officials did not immediately return emails.

Air Canada Wednesday night issued a statement to customers saying it will cut roughly 15% of domestic and transborder flights (but not international routes) this summer to deal with ongoing airport and travel challenges. Most flights being cancelled are into or out of Montreal Trudeau or Toronto Pearson airports.

An Air Canada spokesman told me customers who have their flights cancelled will be eligible for full refunds.

WestJet said it has taken many important steps to deal with post-pandemic travel issues, including:

• Extensive planning to ensure our aircraft are all flying in peak performance
• Hiring more than 1,000 people across all operational areas including our contact centre with hiring ongoing across multiple departments
• Informing guests in advance of travel about evolving timelines and requirements
• Introducing technology enhancements, including digital vouchers and pre-paid options to self-serve and save time at the airport
• Planning our schedule responsibly to accelerate Canada’s recovery
• Investing in additional WestJet oversight to support our third-party providers responsible for actioning and delivering our baggage services
• Updating guests through a direct email sent on May 27, 2022 from our chief operating officer Diederik Pen,

“As we prepare for the busiest travel weekend since pre-pandemic, we have been working closely with our airport partners, third-party providers and the federal government to mitigate challenges. We will continue to be transparent throughout this process and will continue advocate for the stabilization of services along with the permanent removal of outdated health measures to provide greater confidence and certainty to our guests and employees,” the airline said. 

“We appreciate our guests continued patience and understanding as we work together in recovery.”