WESTJET/SUNWING

Westjet rumored to buy Sunwing

That is where 2 negatives definitely wouldn't make a positive!!
George

That's as bad as Frontier and Spirit getting together.

Really? Have you flown with WestJet, Scubaman? I certainly don't agree with either you or George!

We have always used WestJet when flying to SXM, as well as many other locations We also fly Air Canada regularly and the occasional US mainline carrier. While I have never flown Frontier or Spirit in the USA (and would not likely have had any interest in doing so anyway); based on what I have read of them, they both seem to be minimum-service, ultra-low-cost carriers at the low-end of the ratings.

Sunwing is a Canadian low-cost (not ultra) airline. It operates mostly as a vacation charter airline, with limited scheduled flights and a limited number of aircraft, so not really in the same category, IMO. If the purchase rumour is true, I suspect Sunwing will be used to support WestJet Vacations flights, which could be a good fit.

WestJet itself used to be a low-cost carrier when it first started many years ago, but those days are long gone. It is now Canada's second mainline, scheduled airline. Its prices IME are generally comparable to Air Canada.

All airlines have been struggling with passenger loads, flight crew shortages, and changing government regulations, amongst other issues during the pandemic. This has led to an extraordinary and unfortunate number of schedule changes and flight cancellations; but not just with WestJet. So I tend to discount to some degree complaints made as a result of those issues. If you choose to travel during a pandemic, then you have to be flexible and learn to live with the resultant issues, even if they are frustrating. Otherwise it might perhaps be a better choice to just stay home.

While there has been the occasional exception, I generally have nothing but praise for WestJet gate and flight crews. At times in the past they have even been exceptional in solving a problem. I have certainly had no more issues than any other mainline carrier that I have flown with over the years, whether in Canada, the USA, or Europe. So no real negativity from me.

Maybe George (or you) could explain why WestJet is such a "negative"?

Yes I love West Jet simply because that's where are two children lives lol.

Look at trip advisor. I know the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and in most cases the well served customers won't contribute. But look at the cancellations where people aren't being compensated for downgrading of seats, or changes when a 4 hour flight is transformed into a 7 or 8 hour flight or even different dates with no notification.

There are complaints about all 3 CDN airlines for the same things. I don't know about right now but as little as about 2 weeks ago Westjet customer support was keeping people on hold for hours, then telling them they could make a callback appointment, trouble was the appointment was 6 or 7 days later! Which in some cases was after the departure day.

If you notice too, in Sunwings complaints they basically reply that we are sorry you have a problem with our service, but because we are a charter airline we can do what we want without compensation, but we will refer it to management.

Besides that, we basically have 3 airlines cutting that down to two means less competition and higher prices.
George

I hear you George, and it is very frustrating, especially if you are trying to / having to rebook on short notice!! But as you say, the same problems are happening on both sides of the border and almost all airlines, not just WestJet and Sunwing. Due to our lockdowns and last-minute rule changes, etc, we just seem to be experiencing it even worse! Besides the Omicron surge going on at the time, it was one of the reasons we postponed our trip (and flight) for early January. We had booked two one-way flights this year, so that if one got cancelled it didn't automatically cancel both.

As to waiting on hold for long periods, that has been my experience with almost all travel or telecommunications companies in the last year or so. Don't even get me going about trying to update phones, cable or internet with either Rogers or Bell!! I have experienced all of them in the last two or three months. As a retired business owner, I do sympathize with the companies to some degree, despite the amount of swearing at my end as I sit waiting! Unfortunately there is no way I could have afforded to staff my customer service lines for century-level problems either.

Many of the complaints may be fully legitimate, but others IMO are just people with unreasonable expectations given the circumstances, hence I tend to discount many of them and base things on my own experiences. IMO it just goes with travel right now when things are constantly changing. They want to get back to "normal" travel and do all the things they always did, but we aren't there yet.

By the way, when we decided to cancel our WestJet flights in December and were happy to accept flight credits, we were able to do it online. One of them wasn't done correctly, so I tried to call in. I got the option to ask for a call back for a time 3 days later. Fortunately it wasn't urgent for us, so I accepted. They did call back within 5 minutes of the appointed time and were quickly able to correct the problem. So they are trying, but it doesn't help those with last-minute changes.

How can any business be expected to keep up with increased service issues, while also suffering staff shortages and last-minute flight cancellations? I just think it's unrealistic. But that's just me! Based on observations, many of the cancellations seem due to many deciding not to travel in the first place, or changing their mind and cancelling or rebooking, including some of those doing the complaining. Then the flight is no longer viable. In any case, I don't think they are representative of "normal" service in more "normal" times, whenever those may return, so I'm not prepared to tar them with a broad brush. YMMV.

As to reducing our airlines to two from three, Sunwing was never a mainline carrier and only had a couple of dozen aircraft. Also, Canada doesn't have enough population to justify three mainline airlines. Even two is difficult. Those two are the equivalent of having 18 airlines in the US, which is roughly the current number of mainline passenger airlines in the US, and not all of them are healthy either. Three would be the equivalent of about 27 mainline air carriers in the US, with the population centres in Canada much more spread out! Not a hope in hades of three surviving. Just my take!

Well we actually have another Canadian Airline that flies direct to SXM..
Air Transat is actually larger than Sunwing.
Canada's 3rd largest behind Air Canada and Westjet.
Air Canada tried to buy Air Transat no too long ago but that deal fell apart.
There will be a lot of T's to cross and i's to dot before Westjet and Sunwing become one. We will just have to wait and see.

Drphilsxm

No, not that bad! It may not happen because of political issues involving Russian ties with Sunwing. We will have to wait and see how this union transpires.

Russian ties to Sunwing? I never heard about that…

Yes, it was announced here a few days ago. Because of this the government is probably not going to approve the sale.