Further delays, cancellations expected as WestJet deals with service outage fallout, winter weather

WestJet is warning of further delays and cancellations over the next 24 hours as it continues to recover from a system-wide outage over the weekend and deals with the winter weather.

“I’m angry. I mean, I’m like most Canadians, you know, I flow with punches, but not this. This is unconscionable,” said Stewart Roberts.

Roberts was supposed to fly from Kelowna, B.C., and board a connecting flight in Calgary so he could be in Ottawa on Saturday in time to attend a funeral there on Sunday.

Instead, he is stuck in Calgary with his plans and accommodations up in the air.

“I said ‘I’ve missed my funeral, I want to go home.’ ‘But we can’t do that.’ Now they’ve offered me a flight to Toronto. I don’t want to go to Toronto. What the heck do I want to get stuck in Toronto for?” he said.

“No information, no accommodations, nothing. Going around handing out $15 food chips. I had to rent a hotel myself. They are not dealing with us the way they have to.”

WestJet’s outage on Saturday was caused by a cooling issue in its primary data centre.

It came back online Saturday evening, but ever since, the airline has been working to re-accommodate guests.

More than 200 flights were cancelled over the weekend and another 48 flights were cancelled on Monday due to the service outage, winter weather, crew, safety and maintenance.

Gemini Clarke had to spend Sunday night in a hotel in Calgary after delays caused her to miss her connecting flight from Las Vegas to her home in Kelowna.

“Since the pandemic, we haven’t travelled, right? So, it’s been really stressful. We were super excited to travel and then all the delays happened,” she said.

“We’re exhausted, we’re tired. We just want to get home. So, it’s super frustrating just being left in the dark with WestJet. We did not get any emails, no phone calls, we can’t get through.”

WestJet said its call centre was out of service during the outage, so people faced long waits and weren’t able to get through.

Aviation management expert John Gradek said airlines are responsible for identifying possible problems with their systems ahead of time and having contingencies in place.

“Computer systems are such an integral part of any business today and if there’s anything within that control system, within that computer system, you have to have backup somehow, some way,” he said.

On Sunday, WestJet’s chief operating officer, Diederik Pen, told CTV News he doesn’t expect this IT issue to happen again.

“We are evaluating, putting lessons learned in place and so on and so forth, so what is happening is a catch-up. And it’s just like a severe storm and other things. It takes time to recover,” he said.

WestJet said it is reaching out to impacted travellers via email about re-accommodation options.

Hotels, food and transportation are expected to be covered, but it’s unclear whether missed events, like concerts, will be reimbursed.