give us a latest update here what are we hearing from passengers yeah so uh a look this is certainly a really challenging time for travelers across the country um so in terms of the dispute between WestJet and their aircraft mechanical engineers it was resolved in the early hours of Monday morning but the ripple effect will last for days uh WestJet had to cancel more than a thousand flights more than 100,000 passers impacted and they say to get operations up and running WestJet actually says it’ll it’ll take a few days in the meantime uh when we take a look at you know these passengers who have been uh deeply impacted certainly not only during what is the first official long weekend of Summer but for families with small children it’s the beginning of summer vacation for these families I mean people have been trying to get a hold of WestJet customer service we have heard stories of people waiting on the phone you know several hours um I feel for as a journalist throughout the weekend WestJet media relations did not respond to any of my correspondents emails phone calls text messages uh so certainly it’s a challenge for everyone trying to get information at this time but what what Travelers across the country need to realize is that there are regulations there’s Federal legislation in place to protect passengers there’s a federal passenger Bill of Rights uh so uh that’s something that Travelers should look to in terms of a in terms of some kind of guidance to help them with refunds and some kind of reimbursement but not everyone will be eligible uh according according to the guidelines cancellations have to be outside of the airlines control um or for you know some of this to to essentially not kick in so let me put it this way on June the 27th preemptively uh WestJet canceled a number of flights uh this is before these Airline mechanics walked off the job so that could be considered within their control um so if if a cancellation was within their control then they they really owe passengers some reimbursement to clarify let me be clear if it’s outside of their control then it gets a little bit trickier actually uh in saying that though for the airline mechanics this was their first deal uh this is their first Collective Agreement there’s some 800 of them across the country and their job is incredibly significant what they do is keep planes safe um these airl mechanical engineers have to actually sign off before a pilot can take over a plane as you could see why WestJet had to ground some 150 of their 180 plane Fleet uh to over these last few days and the impact it had on Travelers right across the country indeed we’re also learning this Christina that several of these aircrafts are actually stuck on airbats across the country so it’ll take time for those aircrafts to be up in the air and VZ to resume full operations so I’m curious while you tried to reach the airlines over the Canada dayong weekend and you got no response as of this morning is wet saying anything how soon will they be fully operational yeah so actually they say it’ll take a couple of days uh I I want I’ll share with you actually the latest of what they say they say they have parked 13 uh they’re parked at 13 airports across the country their aircraft eight of which do not have Crews back so the crews need to go to those airports to get back on track um they have to recover these stranded Crews across their Network and they say that’ll be an immediate priority then they have to check some of this parked aircraft it has to go through all sorts of safety checks uh not only that it’s a matter of scheduling as well uh in terms of getting uh things back on track in terms of their operations WestJet says on average um, 1600 crew members are required to execute their operations each day and as a result of this disruption many um operationally sensitive employ like employees in terms of their roles they were disrupted and took them out of a position to to operate and do their job uh so this has a ripple effect everywhere you you see on the screen there more than a thousand flights canceled since Thursday and imagine that impacts tens of thousands of people not only some stuck and Stranded but in terms of flights to come you know there’s a ripple effect in terms of scheduling so no doubt this will last days before WestJet is able to get back on track all right CDV is Christina Tagle I appreciate that update Christina thank you
CTV News’ Cristina Tenaglia discusses how passengers have been waiting hours to contact WestJet customer service over flight delays.
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