Saskatchewan passengers deal with more Sunwing headaches

Passengers returning on a Sunwing flight to Saskatoon from Cancun are coming back with a salty taste in their mouth — and it’s not from the tequila they were sipping on.

Luke Malmgren was one of hundreds of passengers who were set to fly home from Cancun just after 3:30 p.m. on Monday, but that didn’t happen.

He says he got to the airport early and waited around for his flight to board while also getting moved to different gates. It wasn’t ideal, he said, but it’s nothing abnormal when it comes to flying.

However, when it was time to board, he said passengers didn’t start the process.

“Once we moved gates, at no point I don’t think we were notified our flight was delayed,” Malmgren said. “When we were supposed to be boarding, we didn’t start boarding.”

Eventually, Malmgren says, they got on the plane but once they did, things got weird.

“I believe they got us on the plane at about 4 p.m. and then we were told immediately that we would be (delayed) two or three minutes,” he said. “Immediately after they told us it was going to be two or three minutes, I guess they had a mechanical failure. They opened the rear door and front door to let the air flow and they started handing out water.

“We thought, ‘That’s kind of weird,’ and it got to the point where some people were saying (they) didn’t need any water, but the flight crew was insisting they needed this water. Clearly they must’ve known this was going to take longer than two or three minutes.”

While they waited on the plane for crews to figure out what was wrong, Malmgren said the plane didn’t have the air conditioning turned on, which created an uncomfortable experience despite the outside air flowing in.

Malmgren said that after a lengthy delay, the pilot told passengers the repairs were completed and they were going to taxi towards the runway.

While it sounded like they were leaving, Malmgren said the pilot abandoned the flight shortly after he felt something wasn’t right with the plane. The flight was cancelled and the passengers had to deplane, which Malmgren notes he was OK with.

“That’s disappointing obviously for us, but I’d rather not crash in the middle of the sea. If the plane’s busted, then the plane’s busted,” he explained.

They had to go through customs again and locate their baggage and figure out how to get a hotel.

Malmgren said once everything was retrieved, a Sunwing representative told the passengers to go to the front of the airport, but nobody was telling them what to do next.

“There was no mass announcement that everybody knew for sure about what was going on,” he explained. “At one point, they told us we were going to get buses and some of us would go to one particular hotel, but that hotel only had room for half the people and they’d figure the rest out.”

Eventually, Malmgren said, all the passengers got settled at some sort of hotel for the night. They were told a shuttle would leave at 8 a.m., and their flight would leave at 11:30 a.m.

He said the bus to the airport arrived on time and once they got to the airport, passengers went to the gate they were supposed to be at. Then the gate got moved.

Multiple delays followed as the flight crew hadn’t arrived on time.

Malmgren said in order to compensate for the delay, the airline gave passengers $25 lunch vouchers. But he notes it was too little too late for that.

“The problem with that is because our plane was supposed to leave at 11:30 a.m., most people had already bought lunch anticipating that we would be on a plane at 11:30 a.m.,” he explained. “Some people wanted to know, ‘What can I use this voucher for?’ But it could only be used for restaurant food.”

He added there also wasn’t enough time for passengers to get food vouchers and redeem them because many thought they were going to board right away.

Malmgren said the flight was then delayed until just after 3:30 p.m., and when the flight crew arrived, Sunwing made an announcement to passengers to let them know the crew had arrived.

While that was a good sign, many passengers were wondering where the crew was in the first place. According to Malmgren, the bus for the flight crew was six hours late.

Malmgren doesn’t buy that excuse from Sunwing.

“It didn’t really compute with me because why would you need a shuttle? If Sunwing needed their crew there, just send them in a taxi,” he said. “There’s plenty of shuttles around Cancun if you’ve every been there. Half the traffic is shuttles and taxis taking people to and from the airport.”

Malmgren said that once the crew arrived, the passengers were able to get on the plane, but had to wait to get fuel before departing.

They eventually arrived in Saskatoon around 9 p.m. on Tuesday.

While Malmgren is back in Saskatchewan, he says he’s frustrated with the lack of communication Sunwing provided to passengers and their families.

“I understand if your plane has a mechanical issues and the pilot is saying, ‘We can’t fly.’ I understand that. What I do not understand is the constant lying (and) why they would never really tell us what’s going on,” he stated.

“You’re telling me that Sunwing would have no problem getting us a shuttle for hundreds of people to get back to that airport for 8 a.m., but they couldn’t find a way to get a shuttle for seven people at the same time? That’s a lie. There’s no way!”

Malmgren says he hasn’t heard from Sunwing since arriving in Saskatchewan. The airline has had issues in the province since Christmas, leaving a lot of people unhappy.

980 CJME reached out to Sunwing for comment, but hadn’t heard back by the time this article was published.