Regina airport CEO calls latest round of Sunwing cancellations ‘unprecedented’

James Bogusz saw something new Tuesday.

“This is unprecedented,” the president and CEO of the Regina Airport Authority said when asked about Sunwing’s latest round of flight cancellations out of the Queen City to sunny destinations.

“You don’t see airlines typically cancel large schedules like this. And in my two decades, I have not seen, on relatively short notice, an airline cancel such a substantive schedule like we’re seeing today with Sunwing …

“This is going to be disrupting thousands of customers who had booked flights with Sunwing before, and we are very disappointed.”

In late December, the airline announced it was cancelling its operations out of Regina and Saskatoon until Feb. 3, throwing passengers’ plans into disarray. On Tuesday, Sunwing said it was cancelling “the remainder of our winter program from Regina International Airport” as of Feb. 4.

That meant flights from Regina to Mexico, Cuba and the Dominican Republic were scrubbed. There were exceptions, though, including Sunday departures to Puerto Vallarta starting on Feb. 5, and flights scheduled for the Family Day weekend (to Puerto Vallarta on Feb. 17, Mazatlan on Feb. 17, and Cancun on Feb. 18 and Feb. 20).

“The general sentiment from Sunwing in terms of why they did this altogether was there were some challenges, we understand, with the pilots they were planning on using for some of these routes,” Bogusz said. “This dramatically impacted Saskatchewan, along with — I’m now hearing — a few other Canadian cities as well.”

At its peak, Bogusz said Sunwing was offering upwards of eight flights a week from Regina to six sun spots. The flights that are left after Tuesday’s cancellations represent just a fraction of those that were previously available.

“That’s a little bit of capacity, but it’s greatly diminished,” Bogusz said. “I would easily say more than four-fifths of the flights, if not more, have been cancelled.”

Sunwing said passengers impacted by the cancellations could transfer their vacation packages to same-day departures from Saskatoon, Winnipeg or other Canadian airports, if those flights were available. The affected passengers also could cancel their reservations and get a full refund.

Bogusz said customers would have to work with the airline or with their travel agents through either of those scenarios.

Regina has lost flights before — for example, Air Canada just stopped flying from the Queen City to Calgary — but Bogusz said the Sunwing situation is different.

Because Saskatchewan is colder than many provinces in the winter, there’s a disproportionately high number of flights to sunny destinations from this province. That means the impact of Sunwing’s decision will be more deeply felt.

“Although I’m not happy about their decision and I wish they would have made their cuts elsewhere, the fact is, if you’re an airline looking at our market, you’ve got a number of departures that will help you shore up your operations in other areas of the country,” Bogusz said.

Jason Aebig with the Greater Saskatoon Chamber of Commerce said it’s fortunate the Bridge City has yet to hear an announcement from Sunwing similar to what Regina heard Tuesday.

“It seems to be part of a pattern where, even under intense scrutiny and wide criticism, these airlines continue to make decisions that drop out of the sky and affect people’s lives without so much of a thought as to what the implications might be,” Aebig said.

He said the past month in particular has been a masterclass in learning that these sorts of announcements from airlines can truly come out of the blue.

“Hopefully we will be spared the same decisions that have been made with respect to Regina,” Aebig said.

— With files from 980 CJME’s Lisa Schick and 650 CKOM’s Libby Giesbrecht