WestJet travelers frustrated as computer outage leads to delays and rerouted flights – Winnipeg

Travelers at Winnipeg International Airport are feeling frustrated with WestJet flight delays and cancellations.

The airline tweeted Sunday morning that all of its systems were online and stable and that crews were busy working to recover from a system-wide outage.

WestJet’s chief operator in Calgary told Global News that there was a problem with the cooling of the data center, causing a complete outage of their computer system for nine hours for the entire airline and many travelers stranded.

“We are doing everything we can to restore our operations and get guests safely where they want to go,” WestJet chief operating officer Diederik Pen said.

Pen says that on Saturday around 140 flights were affected and on Sunday there are around 100 flights affected. In total, thousands of guests were affected and 27 planes arrived at the wrong airport.

Westjet is trying to rebook guests and arrange ground transportation for them if needed, as well as hotel stays, however, delays and cancellations are expected for the next two days, Pen added.

« At 11.30pm last night my flight was cancelled, » said traveler Maggie Grall.

Grall is currently staying at the Lakeview and has been told she could catch a flight in ten days.

« I said, you can’t tie me up in Winnipeg for ten days, so I have a flight booked for the 8th, but I’m here to see compensation for hotels and meals, » she said. declared.

« I live about two hours south of Montreal, so I have a ways to go. »

Grall says the wait time for the help desk was five hours, which was very frustrating because she couldn’t stay up all night waiting to speak to someone.

A similar experience was had by Winnipegger Raghav Sharma, who says he waited in line for two hours to be told he couldn’t get on a plane.

“When you call them, they say they are helping other customers, so you can’t even call them. If you succeed, it’s like a four-hour wait,” he said.

Sharma is trying to get to Toronto so he can catch a connecting flight to see his family in Delhi, India, whom he hasn’t seen in five years.

« It’s the worst day, to be honest, » he said.

Traveler James Grieve was due to return home to Kelowna after visiting Winnipeg for the week. He says he got pushed around and was going through Calgary, but then he got an email saying he was going through Vancouver. When he arrived at the airport, he was told he would be leaving on Tuesday.

Grieve understands these things happen and hopes the company will fix them.

« I’m a regular guest of WestJet so I’m really interested to see what they’re going to do about it because it’s not practical, » he said.

Westjet maintains a constant dialogue with the company’s IT department to ensure they have effective backup systems in place for the future and the company will carry out a full audit to ensure this does not happen again, Pen said.

2:04
As flight delays and cancellations mount, what compensation are Canadian passengers entitled to?

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