Avoid Westjet at YQB/"remote" outposts
Dec 19, 2014, 7:49 am
#16
Join Date: Apr 2011
Location: Vancouver, B.C.
Programs: Marriott, Hilton, DL, AC Gate Lice, WS, UA
Posts: 110
Dec 19, 2014, 9:41 am
#17
Join Date: Dec 2004
Posts: 306
We will agree to disagree. I find WS much worse than AC and far more useless in IROPs than AC. People give WS far more passes than AC because of the perceived "western" warmness that WS supposedly promotes. Just because someone is nice when they are useless doesn't not make them useless and WS is useless a lot more than AC.
Dec 19, 2014, 11:05 am
#18
Join Date: Apr 2011
Location: Vancouver, B.C.
Programs: Marriott, Hilton, DL, AC Gate Lice, WS, UA
Posts: 110
Darren from WS, what is your take on the OP's experience?
Dec 19, 2014, 10:14 pm
#20
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: alberta canada
Programs: BA Gold,, Marriott Plat
Posts: 352
Dec 21, 2014, 10:58 am
#21
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: YYG
Programs: airlines and hotels and rental cars - oh my!
Posts: 2,993
We will agree to disagree. I find WS much worse than AC and far more useless in IROPs than AC. People give WS far more passes than AC because of the perceived "western" warmness that WS supposedly promotes. Just because someone is nice when they are useless doesn't not make them useless and WS is useless a lot more than AC.
Dec 21, 2014, 3:18 pm
#22
Company Representative: WestJet
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: Calgary
Programs: WestJet Rewards
Posts: 292
Our flight from YQB to YYZ was cancelled last evening due to weather. There was absolutely no one from customer service or ticketing at YQB to help passengers once we were offloaded. We were simply given a Westjet business card and told to deal with reservations on our own. By the time we were able to get through, they only had space remaining on a flight 2 days later. Westjet is all fun and games until IROPS and then they disappear. Avoid them at all costs, especially going to locations where they have sparse coverage. Pathetic.
We are sorry that this happened to our guest. It's quite difficult dealing with irregular operations (or IROPs) on a route that only has one flight each day (watch for double daily service coming soon).
In times when the most-obvious plan of action seems like a terrible experience for our guests, we'll often buy some time by sending our guests on their way with a business card that lists our phone number - no point in keeping guests sitting around in the terminal waiting for news to "come back tomorrow." That gives us a few hours to look into other options for our guests (usually, the feasibility of recovery flights). We'd hate to, under pressure, put a guest on the next scheduled flight the following evening, only to open up a new flight the next morning. Once our head office Guest Solutions team works out the quickest possible way to get everyone to their destination, will we open up the phone lines and pass this information on.
Unfortunately in this situation, it sounds like even with the borrowed time by not having guests sit around in the terminal, we still weren't able to find a quick way to get all guests to their destination.
To the original poster, please accept our apologies for this very rare turn of events. We know it's frustrating to be grounded somewhere when you have other places you need and want to be. We hope to welcome you on board again soon.
Cheers,
Darren
Dec 22, 2014, 4:18 am
#23
Original Poster
Join Date: Sep 2012
Posts: 139
Thanks, Darren. I do appreciate that you have taken the time to carefully consider and respond to my posting (at the request of another FT member). Unfortunately, your explanation for Westjet's behaviour simply serves as a justification for me to choose Air Canada for my frequent YTO-YQB trips, which has better coverage on this route - and more customer service agents at YQB. While Westjet may have its benefits on other routes (esp. better chance of snagging free exit row seats at check in), it simply can't compete on a route with 1-2 flights/day, as compared to AC's 5-6/day + options of retorting via YUL in the case of irregular operations. I caution business travellers against WestJet and Porter at YQB - and at other sparsely served airports.
