Murray Wood: Who's hot... and who's not
Every Friday, Murray Wood takes a look back at the week's news and decides who's hot... and who's not.
Those travelling from the Regina airport will be able to visit more places this upcoming winter.
On Monday, WestJet announced that starting in November it will be expanding its air traffic schedule at the airport to include flights to Cancun, Orlando and Las Vegas.
That’s on top of flights to Phoenix and Puerto Vallarta that are to return this winter.
Regina Airport Authority president and CEO James Bogusz said Monday’s announcement was welcome news considering everything the airport has had to deal with over the last two years.
“WestJet has announced they will be reintroducing some flights we have not seen since the start of the (COVID) pandemic,” Bogusz explained. “This is a huge improvement from what we had last year and certainly a bigger improvement from what we had in 2020.
“There’s a really nice list of destinations for people this winter thinking about getting away for that holiday and visiting friends in the U.S.,” Bogusz added.
Bogusz suggests the extra flights will have a major impact on the local economy.
“We’re seeing airlines willing to take a lot more risk in deploying aircraft back into our market because we’re seeing much more sustained travel volumes in the summer,” Bogusz said.
“These WestJet flights represent very close to a pre-pandemic capacity for their winter charter season and that really shows us that the airlines are looking forward and people are getting back to regular travel and we’re excited to see that supported.
“This is tens of millions of dollars into our local economy, this is jobs and it’s very important these flights are restored and we hope the residents of Regina will hop on those planes.”
Bogusz mentioned when it comes to baggage delays, that situation has slowly got better since the crisis throughout major airports in the country over the last couple of months.
He added the Regina airport hasn’t had to deal with a lost bag in over a week and a half.
“Here in Regina, being a smaller airport, we have not experienced those locally,” Bogusz said. “If you’re connecting through a major hub, it’s always best to build in enough time for those connections.
“Also, if you have anything critical you’re travelling with, put them in a carry-on bag just in case you do have a challenge.”
