Travellers returning home on rescheduled Sunwing flights

Saskatchewan travellers temporarily stranded by Sunwing’s cancellations are returning home on rescheduled flights to both the Saskatoon and Regina airports.

Last Thursday, Sunwing Vacations announced the cancellation of all its flights in Saskatchewan until at least Feb. 3, promising automatic refunds to those with booked flights and advising passengers already at their destination to stand by and wait for more information. On Friday the airline said 43 recovery flights were planned, and on Tuesday released a statement with an update on the affected passengers.

“All scheduled recovery flights are complete (and) those still in destination are rescheduling previously missed return flights, or on longer vacations (and) are scheduled to return at a later date per their original departure date,” Sunwing said.

The airline said any further changes will be unrelated to the holiday issues.

Justin Reves, manager of customer experience for the Regina Airport Authority, said he’s seen some of the return flights carrying Regina passengers landing in different cities, such as Saskatoon or Winnipeg, leaving some Regina locals to arrange the final leg of their journey home themselves.

“Sunwing’s intent was to get pretty much everybody home by (Jan. 2), and the last few people shortly after,” he said, adding that Sunwing has been trying to contract other airlines to help with the effort.

CJ Dushinski, vice-president of business development for the Saskatoon Airport, said one or two Sunwing flights have been arriving daily, and the airport was expecting another Sunwing flight to arrive Tuesday from Cuba.

“We’ve heard that they’ve been accommodating passengers connecting from other markets on other mainline carriers to get them back to Saskatoon,” she said.

Dushinski said the airport hasn’t received any indication from Sunwing that the cancellations will continue beyond Feb. 3.

“We’re hoping that this will be the end of it, and in February things will return to normal,” she said.

For those picking up travellers on incoming flights, Reves recommended using flight tracking resources such as FlightAware or Flightradar24 to get the latest updates on incoming flights.

650 CKOM has reached out to Sunwing for comment.