Sunwing cancels several Thursday flights out of Pearson airport

Travellers wait in line at a Sunwing Airlines check-in desk. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes

Several Sunwing flights out of Toronto Pearson International Airport on Thursday have been cancelled.

In a statement on its website, the airline said the cancellation of southbound flights would allow it to “prioritize the safe return of customers currently delayed in destinations due to recent weather disruptions, crew availability constraints and extremely limited hotel capacity.”

The airline added that customers would receive a full refund to their original form of payment within 21 business days. Sunwing apologized to its customers impacted by the cancellation.

“This difficult but essential operational decision allows us to redirect our resources toward bringing delayed customers home as quickly and safely as possible,” Sunwing said.

“Our team continues to work diligently to minimize further impact on our operations and support affected passengers.”

It is unclear how many flights are impacted.

The new cancellations come hours after the airline cancelled a handful of scheduled flights on Wednesday, citing a similar reason.

Departure boards at Pearson showed that 30 Sunwing flights were scheduled to fly out of Toronto on Wednesday.

In a post on social media, the airport said, “Sunwing was unable to reduce its operating rates in advance as requested by the airport, which unfortunately resulted in these delayed cancellations.”

“Our teams are on hand to assist the airline with returning checked-in baggage to passengers,” Pearson airport added.

The airline’s advisory noted that Sunwing Vacations customers with flights scheduled to depart between Feb. 13 and 19 that have experienced flight delays of more than 24 hours have been given the option to either travel on rescheduled flights, make a one-time change to their departure date, or cancel their travel plans altogether.