Travel chaos starts for passengers impacted by Air Canada labour dispute
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Jeff Downie said he was notified two days before his scheduled flight on Aug. 15 that his departure was 'at risk of cancellation.'
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He received no further updates or confirmation by Friday morning with his flight still supposedly scheduled to depart at 6 p.m. for Vancouver, where he was to catch a connecting flight to Sydney, Australia.
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Amid the uncertainty and the numerous flight cancellations that caused chaos at airports across the country, Downie decided to cancel his Air Canada ticket and scrambled to make alternate arrangements through the United States.
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'Air Canada cancelled the same long-haul flight (on Thursday) that I booked for Friday,' Downie said in a phone interview during his Newark stopover.
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'I don't know what they're waiting for, and not offering any option. That's the real piss-off,' he said. 'Two days ago, they could have told us to go online, get a refund and go figure out alternative transportation. It still would have been frustrating because I booked this ticket eight months ago at a significant discount, and now I'm paying same-day rates.
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'We figured it out, but we're paying a premium.'
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Downie said he had been among the many Canadians choosing not to cross the U.S. border amid the tariff and trade war.
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'I was happy to stay in Canada, happy to spend my money in Canada, but they're making it impossible for people,' he said.
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'I get the labour disruption, I get the challenge for (Air Canada). But to hold people's money is the big issue — to limit people's options and then have no communication, still, hours before the flight,' he said.
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'All the other flights are long gone. Those flights (with other carriers) are competitively filling up because everybody's trying to make alternate plans.'
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