Hundreds of WestJet passengers that were stranded for days at Toronto's Pearson Airport have finally made it home.

Frigid temperatures of about -40 prompted a ground stop at Pearson International Airport on Tuesday causing the delay and cancellation of hundreds of flights.

As many as 22,000 WestJet passengers were stranded across the country and 200 of the airline's flights were cancelled.

On Thursday, the airline charted a 747 from Houston to take weary travellers to their destinations and 470 weary WestJet passengers boarded the special flight.

Miriam Pinto was among thousands of passengers stranded at Pearson when the airport shutdown. “We were stuck there for quite a while, three days so, and delay after delay, cancellation after cancellation. It was pretty, pretty crazy,” said Pinto.

For some stranded travellers, days of frustration gave way to happiness and even tears.

“I just got here and it's totally worth it so, we haven't seen each other in like a year so it's great,” said Mel Wood and Leah Farrell.

WestJet says the pricey charter was worth it

“But we were essentially chipping away at it. The 747 allowed us to do a large sweep essentially to get everybody home at the same time,” said Robert Palmer from WestJet.

A WestJet flight attendant was on board as an ambassador and passengers say that helped lighten the mood.

“Good service. It was a nice airplane just like a big WestJet airplane,” said Jordan Heiti.

Also on board, 1100 pieces of luggage which would soon to be reunited with passengers from across the province.

On Friday, the head of Pearson International Airport apologized saying the airport authority dropped the ball during the cold spell.

"I would like to take this opportunity to offer an apology to all the passengers who were affected those two days based on the disruptions and frustrations they encountered, and the changes to their travel plans," CEO Howard Eng told CTV News Channel on Friday.

Eng says airport and airline staff will be meeting to have a major debrief to identify what went well and what went wrong

(With files from Jocelyn Laidlaw and ctvnews.ca)