Murray Wood: Who's hot... and who's not
Every Friday, Murray Wood takes a look back at the week's news and decides who's hot... and who's not. This week's list ...
After earning a place to compete in the national Little League championships across the country, the North Regina Major AAA All-Stars are hoping the conflict between WestJet and its flight attendants doesn’t go into extra innings.
The workers’ union could go on strike as soon as Sunday and the company has already started winding down some of its services.
Meanwhile, the Little League team had booked its flights for Sunday to get to Glace Bay, Nova Scotia ahead of the tournament’s first games on Monday.
Read more:
- Mediation and legislation: How the government could step into a WestJet strike
- ‘Every statistic is a family’: MADD sounds alarm after Sask. sees high number of impaired crashes
- Cameco nuclear subsidiary Westinghouse plans to offer stock to the public
Savanna Matthies is president of the North Regina Little League. She said the team is buzzing.
“These kids are so excited, this is what Little League dreams are made of,” she explained on Friday.
But while the kids are excited, the parents are concerned about travel plans. Matthies said everyone had pre-booked their flights.
“Probably 90 per cent of our team is booked on WestJet, so when talks started a few weeks ago, we all went into panic mode a little bit,” she said.
Some of the families were able to move their departures to Saturday from Sunday.
“But we also found out that if WestJet decides to wind down their operations, those flights could be affected as well, so it wasn’t a guarantee, so the rest of us are just sitting on our Sunday flights,” Matthies said.
The players will be at the tournament regardless — Matthies said they all have back-up flights on Air Canada, though they came at a premium. It’s their parents and families who aren’t sure what’s going to happen with their travel.
As president, Matthies also booked a back-up flight on Air Canada; she said the one-way, refundable flight was three times the cost of the round-trip she’d already had booked with WestJet.
At first, she was considering driving to the Maritimes to make sure she’d be there.
“I’ve been mentally preparing myself for the past week that I was going to leave today (Friday) and drive there because I didn’t want to miss it,” she said, explaining that she would have arrived just in time for the first game on Monday.
She said the whole situation has been stressful, but the kids are excited and they’re all hoping WestJet and its flight attendants can reach a deal so the team and all the families can keep their original travel plans.
