Welcome to Canada Day travel chaos. With WestJet mechanics out on a surprising strike, the airline has cancelled 150 flights for today (Saturday, June 29), and it warns more could be coming. Mechanics walked off the job at 7:30 p.m. Eastern Time last night (Friday, June 28), an action the union says is perfectly legal despite a ministerial order from the Justin Trudeau government that union reps and WS undergo binding arbitration to come up with a new bargaining agreement. A couple of hours later, WestJet announced it will cancel 150 flights, possibly affecting 20,000 travellers. It also warned that Read more
Canada
A country’s safety and sense of security are often key criteria for international travellers. Using a set of 35 objective indicators, HelloSafe has published for the first time its HelloSafe Index of the safety of countries worldwide, based on 5 categories of criteria: risk of natural disasters, violence in society, involvement in armed conflict, health infrastructure and militarization. The results show that Iceland, Singapore (here’s a story I wrote about Singapore recently) and Denmark are the three safest countries in the world to travel to in 2024. The Philippines, Colombia and Mexico are the three least safe countries in the world in Read more
Porter Airlines is responding to strong demand for its service by more than doubling capacity to Florida this winter. The new schedule features up to 126 weekly departures across 14 routes from four Eastern Canada airports in Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Halifax. The line-up of destinations includes Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers, Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and the new addition of West Palm Beach. Seasonal service between Toronto Pearson International Airport and Palm Beach International Airport begins November 14, with one daily roundtrip flight. New service from Montreal-Trudeau International Airport to Fort Lauderdale and Fort Myers starts this winter. Porter is the Read more
Canadians have more ways than ever to get to great sun destinations, including Tulum, Sarasota, Saint Martin, Phoenix, Los Cabos and Punta Cana. Air Canada today (June 26) announced it is boosting its 2024-25 winter sun network, with increased frequencies and featuring new routes from Ottawa and Quebec City to Tulum and from Montreal to Saint Maarten. In addition, more flights are scheduled from Halifax, Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver to popular vacation destinations in Florida and the Caribbean. This winter, Air Canada plans to operate up to 50 flights departing Canada every day, serving a total of 55 Caribbean Read more
Canada Day is right around the corner and Expedia data is showing it to be the busiest travel weekend of the summer. Domestically, Toronto (32%), Vancouver (23%), Montréal (25%), Calgary (24%), and Edmonton (17%) are the most sought-after destinations for Canadians, and are also seeing double digit increases, up from Canada Day 2023. For international travel, New York came in as the top city overall (31%), but Cancun and Las Vegas prove to be the fastest growing with increases of 112% and 61% respectively. Canadians looking to celebrate the holiday abroad are also jet-setting to Rome (22%), Athens (25%), Los Read more
