‘It was a nightmare’: Travellers recount thwarted flights in wake of Sunwing delays, cancellations

Watching other flights at Toronto Pearson (left), Jennifer Jackson and her friend (right).

Jennifer Jackson braved an hours-long, white-knuckling drive through blowing snow and gruelling road conditions to Toronto Pearson International Airport amid a snowstorm on Sunday for her first ever all-inclusive resort vacation to Montego Bay, Jamaica—a trip she never got to go on thanks to Sunwing Airlines, she says.

The educational assistant, who lives in Dufferin County, was one of countless travellers who had their trips derailed this week either as a result of back-to-back snowstorms or Sunwing’s decision to cancel most southbound flights out of Pearson on both Wednesday and Thursday in attempt to prioritize the safe return of stranded travellers.

Jackson told CTV News Toronto that she was looking forward to the trip celebrating her best friend’s 55th birthday, one she says took years in the making due to her work schedule and the fact she takes care of several rescue animals.

Jackson says she was initially scheduled to leave Sunday morning, but the flight got delayed to the afternoon even before she made it to the airport. Still, she said after speaking with the airline, she was assured they would depart despite the wintry conditions.

“It was honestly the most stressful drive,” Jackson recounted. “It was incredibly scary, and my friend has extreme anxiety about driving, so she just sat with her eyes closed.”

By the time they made it to the airport, dropping their vehicle off with Park ‘N Fly valet parking, Jackson’s travel chaos continued—their flight got hit with another delay.

Toronto saw back-to-back-to-back dumps of snow between Thursday and Sunday, blanketing the city with more than 70 centimetres of snow over the span of days. In light of that, Jackson said she understood why the flight was delayed further.

“My problem was, was they were not communicating with anybody whatsoever. They just kept moving us and saying we had a gate change and they were herding us through the airport from one end to another,” Jackson said. “We had, I think, six gate changes.”

Jackson said her frustration grew when she saw more other planes take off from the airport before hers—and was disappointed further when she finally got a text from Sunwing, informing her that her flight had been cancelled for the evening.

So, Jackson and her friend were forced to line up for three-and-a-half hours to get a hotel voucher for an overnight stay at an airport hotel, along with hordes of other disgruntled Sunwing fliers.

“There were three representatives working at the kiosks,” Jackson recounted. “(People) were getting really angry. There was police called in. It was, it was scary.”

When Jackson returned to Pearson for their rescheduled flight on Monday, she said she was notified via text that her flight had been cancelled.

“Please contact Sunwing for more information. This is the last flight notification,” a screenshot of the text, reviewed by CTV News Toronto, reads. There were no details as to why the trip was outright cancelled, however, the text was timestamped at 2 p.m. – 15 minutes before a Delta Air Lines flight crash-landed onto the Toronto airport’s tarmac.

“We were both crying. I’m not going to lie, because it was a nightmare,” Jackson said.

Feeling dejected about the failed tropical vacation, Jackson embarked on her two-hour drive back home. But as they neared her house, she got another email saying her flight was leaving at 4:30 p.m. the next day.

She promptly hopped on the phone with Sunwing, waiting 16 hours on the line before finally getting through to a representative—who she said assured her that they were scheduled to leave the following afternoon.

After going to sleep for the evening, Jackson said she awoke to a notification that said her gate had changed for her 4:30 a.m. flight. Another message reads that the flight boarded and took off.

Jackson said she and her friend were offered travel vouchers, but are not accepting them.

Countless travellers stranded

While Jackson couldn’t even make it to her Caribbean vacation, Alicia Guddemi and Kylie Thompson are still trying to make it back home from theirs. The two university students went to Puerto Plata with 12 other friends for a reading week trip but were just notified by Sunwing that their Thursday flight back to Pearson would be delayed by 26 hours.

“We found out last night at like 10 p.m. We got a text saying that we’re leaving Friday at 11:30 p.m.,” Guddemi said.

“We just checked out of our room, like, probably an hour ago, and then they told us we’ll probably get another room around 3 p.m.,” Guddemi adds, with Thompson noting a couple of their other friends who flew in earlier than they did had their flight delayed by more than 30 hours and had to crash on their couch as there were no other rooms available across their side of the island at that time.

“It’s not a bad place to be but a few of us have gotten sick over the trip and kind of have lost our appetite, so we’re ready to go home, ready to be on a plane,” Thompson said.

Sunwing’s response

Sunwing cancelled dozens of flights out of Pearson airport on both Wednesday and Thursday, citing the need to safely bring back stranded travellers as well as “crew constraints and extremely limited hotel capacity.”

Speaking to CTV News Toronto, John Dawson described what it was like at the Sunwing terminal at Toronto Pearson on Wednesday, painting a picture of sheer frustration from travellers at the gates.

After waiting several hours for his delayed flight to Santa Clara, Cuba, Dawson said a mass announcement was made to all fliers over the intercom that their flights had been cancelled and that they had to vacate the field terminal.

“The part that was very frustrating for me, and I’m sure for a lot of other people was, not so much the what, but the way (we were told the news). There was no precursor, no warning to what might be happening until it was basically right in front of us. Nobody was available for questions,” Dawson said, adding the representative was guarded by police and security personnel.

“Everybody was just left sort of staring at each other like, ‘Did we hear this?’”

The airline also cancelled southbound flights departing from Montreal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport on Thursday.

“This difficult but essential operational decision allows us to redirect our resources toward bringing delayed customers home as quickly and safely as possible,” the airline said in a statement on Thursday.

CTV News Toronto contacted the airline for further comment about Jackson’s situation but did not immediately receive a response.