Waterloo Region travellers stuck in Dominican Republic for days due to delayed flights

Travellers from Waterloo Region can’t get home after their flight keeps getting delayed due to the weather. CTV’s Spencer Turcotte reports.

The fallout from the weekend’s winter blast continues.

Travellers from Waterloo Region have been stuck in the Dominican Republic for days because their Sunwing flight home keeps getting delayed.

They’re being told it’s because of the recent weather, but other airlines seem to be coming and going from the Region of Waterloo International Airport (YKF) just fine.

Jane Donnelly’s vacation is ending with many questions and few answers. The Waterloo resident’s trip started great with lots of sun and lots of smiles with family.

They were getting ready to fly back when things changed.

“This past Sunday we got the call that the flight had been delayed a day,” said Donnelly.

What followed was a long wait to learn where the group could stay in the meantime.

“We waited in the lobby for almost 12 hours before we finally found out there were rooms at this resort we’re at now,” Donnelly told CTV News on Tuesday from the new hotel they’ve been moved to.

Then, more trouble came.

“We’re trying to get a hotel room for tonight because we’ve been delayed for a second day going into Kitchener,” said Donnelly.

Hans Roach, who is also a Waterloo city councillor, has faced the same problem. He has seen delay after delay trying to get to YKF from Punta Cana.

“We have about 37 of us here for our friends’ honeymoon,” said Roach. “The biggest problem we had here [is] when passengers are held in limbo without answers and sitting in a lobby for 12 hours, 14 hours wondering where we are going to sleep or eat.”

Like Donnelly, Roach has been rescheduled on the same flight that is supposed to return to YKF on Wednesday afternoon.

Both say they weren’t getting answers from the airline, but are praising Sunwing representatives in the Dominican.

“We weren’t really getting great communication, but they did say ‘weather,’” said Roach, referencing the reason given for the delays.

In a statement to CTV News, a statement from Sunwing Media says they’ve been working to recover operations following last week’s storm and the heavy weekend snowfall.

“However, these extreme weather disruptions also severely limited our ability to reposition aircraft and crew to other airports to help alleviate the backlog in flights, and adversely limited our ability to reprotect passengers on alternate carriers given widespread flight cancellations,” the statement goes on to say.

President of Air Passenger Rights Gabor Lukacs doesn’t accept the weather as a reason.

“There was a weather issue on the weekend. Today is Tuesday,” he said. “It just shows that they didn’t have enough backups. I would say this holds no water.”

He says travellers should be compensated.

“The airline has to provide meals, accommodation and $1,000 in standardized compensation under the Air Passenger Protection regulations,” said Lukacs. “They should hold onto receipts, especially if it is showing that the airline has not taken all reasonable measures to prevent the delay. The airlines will have to pay for these expenses.”

People in Donnelly’s group will definitely be saving those receipts, especially since they were travelling with her young grandchildren.

“We’re running out of diapers. We’ve run out of sunscreen. Now we’re going to have to pay probably $40 USD [just for the sunscreen],” Donnelly said.

If the flight is delayed beyond Wednesday, the airline may be on the hook for the cost of return tickets.

“If the airline can’t rebook you on a flight back home that departs within 48 hours of your original flight on its own or partner airlines, they have to buy you a ticket to a competitor,” said Lukacs.