Flair flight cancellation leaves Guelph traveller stranded, uninformed
Andrew Mackay from Guelph says he was left stranded in Florida last year after his flight with Flair Airlines was cancelled without his knowledge.
In December he purchased round-trip flights from Waterloo to Fort Lauderdale. On the day of his return flight home, he got to the airport but the plane wasn’t there.
“[I] checked all day that the Kitchener to Fort Lauderdale flight was on time. They kept saying ‘it was, it was, it was,’” Mackay said. “The communication, I thought, was terrible.”
He said he was informed at the airport that the plane never left Kitchener and there was no flight.
“They had cancelled it but they never told anyone,” he said.
Mackay was offered another flight that wasn’t taking off until the following evening. Since he had to return home for work, he chose to pay for a second flight to Pearson International Airport, the same day.
He said he also had to take an Uber from Pearson to Kitchener.
It all added up to over $1,100, according to Mackay.
He said he was never reimbursed for the added costs and added that Flair refunded only a portion of the cancelled flight.
“I’m just not going to trust them anymore,” he said.
CTV News reached out to Flair Airlines and were told the company is looking into the situation and would get back to us. CTV News did not hear back from the discount airline by the time this article was posted.
"The miscommunication and the lying really. When they keep saying on the website that the plane is on time and it never even left. That's really unfortunate,” Mackay said.
Mackay said he travels to Florida once a month and plans to continue to do that but said it won’t be with Flair.
“They just don’t know how they disrupt people’s lives. It just happens a lot with them and a lot of cancelled flights,” he said.
Flair responds
Flair Airlines told CTV News the flight was cancelled due to maintenance.
“The safety and wellbeing of our customers is paramount and we apologize for any inconvenience the flight disruption caused,” Flair said in a statement.
Flair went on the say passengers receive regular communication updates through email and text.
“In this specific incident, passengers received three emails/SMS over the course of the delay,” Flair said.
When a flight is cancelled, Flair said customers are automatically rebooked on the next flight. In this case, the next available flight wasn’t until the following day.
The company said travellers can cancel for a refund if the new flight doesn’t align with their travel requirements.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Signs of Alzheimer’s were everywhere. Then his brain improved
Blood biomarkers of telltale signs of early Alzheimer’s disease in the brain of his patient, 55-year-old entrepreneur Simon Nicholls, had all but disappeared in a mere 14 months.
Box tree moths have infested Ontario and experts say more are coming. Here's what to do to protect your garden
An invasive moth species is on the rise in Canada and, if you've planted a certain shrub, it could stand to ruin your garden.
Lyon-bound Air Canada Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner from Montreal turns back midflight due to pressurization alert
Passengers heading from Montreal to Lyon, France on Friday were forced to return home and depart the next day after a pressurization indication was detected in flight.
VIA Rail service delayed for hours due to suspicious package investigation in Kingston, Ont.
VIA Rail service resumed in the Kingston, Ont. area late Saturday afternoon, after a suspicious package investigation halted train service for more than four hours over the Victoria Day long weekend.
$500K-worth of elvers seized at Toronto airport
Fishery and border service officers seized more than 100 kilograms of unauthorized elvers at the Toronto Pearson International Airport on Wednesday.
B.C. pipeline company argues its 'haulers' are not trucks, for tax purposes
A contractor working on the Coastal GasLink pipeline has been denied more than $333,000 worth of tax rebates because pieces of machinery it purchased – and claimed were not trucks – were deemed sufficiently truck-like in B.C. Supreme Court.
Usyk beats Fury by split decision, becomes undisputed heavyweight champion
Oleksandr Usyk defeated Tyson Fury by split decision to become the first undisputed heavyweight boxing champion in 24 years.
His SUV was stolen on Montreal's South Shore. Then he got a $156 parking ticket
A couple is frustrated after their SUV was stolen from Montreal's South Shore in March and they received a parking ticket for the same vehicle last week.
Banking mogul suing government after intelligence leaks leave him shut out of Canadian economy
Chinese Canadian banking mogul Shenglin Xian has launched a $300 million lawsuit against the federal government. It’s a means to find the source of intelligence leaks which Xian says has cost him his livelihood.