Sask. family drives home after enduring days-long flight delays

Most of us have experienced some sort of flight delay or cancellation that has caused some frustration.

But this one took it to the next level for one family flying back to Regina from Kelowna.

Ariane Desrosiers, her husband and their two kids were scheduled to leave the B.C. city last Saturday. They finally arrived back in Regina on Wednesday by car.

It all started Saturday when their original flight from Kelowna to Edmonton was delayed. They had a connection out of Edmonton to Regina, which they knew they wouldn’t make because of the delay.

Desrosiers said she called WestJet customer service to reschedule and to get on another flight to get them home.

She said she was told there weren’t any options except for a flight out of Penticton to Calgary, so the family drove from Kelowna to Penticton with the rental car they still had.

That’s when things went from bad to worse.

An unexpected service outage at the airline wouldn’t allow them to make the change because the agent’s screen kept freezing.

“That was the first inclination of there’s something else going on here,” Desrosiers said.

Once they got to Penticton and waited to get on their flight, they didn’t get any confirmation from WestJet staff or an email about the flight.

It turned out that flight was cancelled and luckily they were able to spend the night at her brother-in-law’s house.

The family was then automatically rebooked for the next flight out the next day, but the times did not properly match so Desrosiers was back on the phone with WestJet.

“I waited over seven hours on the phone to get new flights for Monday,” she said.

But as they were checking in for that flight at the airport in Penticton, it also ended up getting cancelled.

They were then rebooked for a flight on Tuesday, but that flight was out of Kelowna because there are more flight options out of that city.

“So we drove ourselves back to Kelowna and then that flight also got delayed from 7 to 9 at night. And so we knew we wouldn’t make the connection in Calgary (to Regina), but we just decided to get on the flight because it was the first one that was actually allowing us to leave,” Desrosiers said.

Once they got to Calgary, they were told to talk to an agent to find a way to get them back to Regina. But at 12:30 in the morning, no one was working.

“When we do get to a customer service desk, they say, ‘We’re closed for the night. We can’t help you. Go to the other one.’ So we get to the other one and there’s a massive lineup and the person in charge tells us these people are lining up for when it reopens the next morning,” she added.

The family then took a cab to a friend’s house. They woke up Wednesday without another email confirmation about a new flight, but there was a change in aircraft.

“That just felt like a risky reason to go to the airport — you know, no tickets, just a changed aircraft. So we just rented a car and drove home,” Desrosiers said.

They arrived home Wednesday night, 108 hours after their original flight was supposed to leave Kelowna, and without their luggage.

She says the whole process was very frustrating because they weren’t receiving any communication from the company and she was the one reaching out trying to get answers.

Although she understands she wasn’t the only one experiencing problems and that issues happen, the first step for her would’ve been to contact customers.

But she says the ones who were the strongest out of the whole situation were her three-year-old and seven-month-old kids.

“They’re pretty tired. Our three-year-old slept until 11 a.m. (Thursday) morning, which has never, ever happened. And the seven-month-old is I think just confused; she doesn’t know day from night anymore,” Desrosiers said with a laugh.

“I mean they were troupers. They made it home with us, but it definitely wasn’t a fun trip for them — or for us.”

In a statement, WestJet apologized for the disruption and stress the service outage caused.

It said the process for many was not seamless, but the airline confirmed all guests have now been accommodated.

WestJet added the outage caused 400 flight cancellations affecting more than 27,000 guests.

The airline says it provided hotels, transportation and meal vouchers while also seeking alternate travel arrangements to get guests to their destinations as soon as reasonably possible.

Desrosiers said when she asked to see if they could get on a flight through another airline, she would’ve had to be put on hold for another three hours to talk to someone who could approve the changes.

She says a claim will be submitted to recoup some of the costs after her husband had to miss three days of work. They also had to file a lost luggage report.