Sask. family says they were 'abandoned' by Sunwing

Kris Beskal says he and his family were told their flight home from Mazatlan to Prince Albert was cancelled on the morning it was supposed to leave, December 23, 2022.

“Then the next few days was kind of like, check back every three hours for updates with Sunwing, and they never did you have any updates, no news, no news,” he said.

Beskal says they stayed at the hotel until their new flight on December 30.

“We get to the airport we find out, 'No, you're flying to Calgary. When you get to Calgary, get off the plane, clear customs and Sunwing will direct you on what to do from there,'” he said.

But upon arriving in Calgary, the 36-year-old says no Sunwing representatives were waiting to direct them and he and his family were left to figure out what to do on their own.

“They just kind of abandoned us in Calgary,” he said.

“It's unbelievable that you would tell them they're going home and then take them to a different city and just, 'See you later. Good luck.' That was unbelievable.”

Eventually, the family bought their own plane tickets from Calgary to Saskatoon through WestJet and drove home from Saskatoon to Prince Albert on December 31, 2022.

He says the whole experience was extremely frustrating.

“We were supposed to be home for Christmas, and then we had people coming over on the 27th for a couple of days, and we had to cancel all those plans in the end,” he said.

“The worst part was there was just no communication at all. I don't know. It was handled very poorly.”

Beskal and his family are one of many across the country who have been stranded and had to change plans over the holiday season because of flight cancellations.

In a statement, Sunwing says it has worked around the clock to return customers home while providing customers in destination with hotel accommodation, food and beverage and airport transfers while providing compensation to impacted passengers.

“We can confirm that all scheduled recovery flights are complete, and any remaining passengers in destination are those who are rescheduling previously missed return flights, or enjoying longer vacations of a two to three-week duration and are scheduled to return at a later date based on their originally scheduled departure date,” the statement said.

“I'd say 70 per cent of the people at the resort were Canadians that were stuck there,” said Beskal.

“They just asked me where I'm supposed to be flying to and then they'd renew your room card. We didn't have to pay any more for the hotel or anything like that.”

President and founder of Air Passenger Rights Gabor Lukacs says compensation from the airline is not enough for passengers.

“The first obligation of serving would be to buy these passengers tickets on other airlines departing from the same airport,” he said.

“If you had a ticket coming departing from Saskatoon, Regina, you shouldn't be having to travel to Edmonton or Calgary…or Winnipeg perhaps, to fly. That's what the deal was. They cannot unilaterally change the deal.”

On Tuesday, Liberal MP and Chair of the House on transport, infrastructure and communities tweeted he will be “convening a meeting of the Transport Committee and will be calling on VIA Rail and Sunwing to appear. Canadians deserve answers for the unacceptable delays and cancellations seen over the holiday season.” 

Premier Scott Moe also tweeted a statement calling flight cancellations by Sunwing an “irresponsible decision”. 

Lukacs says he strongly encourages passengers to take legal action against airlines to create change in the industry.

“These types of outrages, scandals tend to blow over and then things just continue unless passengers are willing to team up to work together and actually change how the entire system works,” he said.

“That can be affected by behaviour modification measures, such as class actions, or individual small claims court actions, which I also strongly encourage.”

Beskal says he isn’t sure if he’ll seek legal counsel, but he is sure of one thing.

“I definitely would never, ever book anything with Sunwing ever again,” he said.