Confessions of a YYC Travel Junkie

[btimbit]

I'd be all for the government moving away from user fees in air travel, but I definitely don't agree that stomping on workers rights is the right move here

[Johnny199r]

It sucks for worker's rights, but I also have a Westjet flight Sunday and would be pretty mad if my flight was cancelled.

[iggy_oi]

I’m pretty confident that WestJet had some talks with minister O’Regan well before it got to this point and probably had a pretty good idea of what he was going to do. So the frustrating part is that there was likely little pressure on WestJet to negotiate in good faith knowing that they weren’t really facing the possibility of a strike.

[btimbit]

Wow! Apparently the union has told its members to strike anyway

This is going to be interesting

Edit: Hearing AME's walked off the job about half an hour ago

Edit 2: WestJet subtly threatens discipline against anyone who strikes. Yikes.
"We expect all employees to report to work as scheduled. We do not consider this action to be a sanctioned disruption and advise that pending a review there may be consequences for anyone participating" Diederik Pen, President, EVP and COO

[Jimmy Stang]

^ This puts my flight tomorrow morning in limbo. Again.

[btimbit]

WestJet really looking stupid here. They just assumed, and even announced, that CIRB agreeing to arbitrate meant the strike notice was null.... Until the CIRB confirmed earlier today that was not the case. Now WestJet is caught by surprise despite having a valid strike notice in their hand since Wednesday, on one of the busiest weekends of the year.

Woops.

[Acey]

They are working on the planes as I type this. I'm watching them working away on gate 24 for a fix to get that tail off to Victoria, doing checks on gate 40 and that's YVR. Both are being fueled, which they wouldn't do if they weren't going.

Dunno what to tell ya.

[btimbit]

Yeah no cancelled flights yet

[Acey]

Sounding maybe like maintenance has called it a night so those last few redeyes are at risk, especially Punta Cana.

[Firebot]

Originally Posted by btimbit

WestJet really looking stupid here. They just assumed, and even announced, that CIRB agreeing to arbitrate meant the strike notice was null.... Until the CIRB confirmed earlier today that was not the case. Now WestJet is caught by surprise despite having a valid strike notice in their hand since Wednesday, on one of the busiest weekends of the year.

Woops.

I'm reading yesterday's Westjet email "happy to confirm that neither a strike nor a lockout will occur, and no further flights will be cancelled"

Westjet looking absolutely brutal on this one, by running to the Labour Minister where they were clearly not negotiating in good faith, to announcing that to not realizing that the AMFA strike notice was still active. Meanwhile the AMFA, at least to what is currently presented, were still able to legally strike and presented the Reverse UNO card.

That Westjet is now threating discipline against AMEs for what appears to be a legal strike is...an interesting choice considering their actions and how in demand they are.

[btimbit]

Sounds like a large chunk of WestJet Ramp Agents in Calgary are planning to call in sick all weekend in unity with their AME brothers and sisters.

That's pretty ballsy considering they're not union, and an attempt to unionize over the winter was basically met with 'Your roles will be contracted out before the ink is dry'

[btimbit]

There it is, 150 flights canceled

[iggy_oi]

Westjet might be completely screwed here. They may be liable to get passengers flights rebooked on other airlines or pay the penalties under the air passengers protection act because they can’t even claim that they didn’t realize this was a possibility. Some of their lawyers could be in some hot water.

[Jimmy Stang]

Originally Posted by btimbit

There it is, 150 flights canceled

Is there a list somewhere? Mine is still saying “on time” for 10:10 tomorrow. But I can only imagine the chaos at the airport.

I guess I’ll keep checking the status. Plan B is to drive, and while not ideal, I’m stubbornly determined to have a week away.

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by Jimmy Stang

Is there a list somewhere? Mine is still saying “on time” for 10:10 tomorrow. But I can only imagine the chaos at the airport.

I guess I’ll keep checking the status. Plan B is to drive, and while not ideal, I’m stubbornly determined to have a week away.

https://www.flightaware.com/live/fleet/WJA/cancelled

Start there I guess but yeah, just keep checking the status. My friend at westjet also said that in a company email it mentioned they unlocked the ability for people to make more flight changes through the app as well

[morgin]

Originally Posted by Jimmy Stang

Is there a list somewhere? Mine is still saying “on time” for 10:10 tomorrow. But I can only imagine the chaos at the airport.

I guess I’ll keep checking the status. Plan B is to drive, and while not ideal, I’m stubbornly determined to have a week away.

https://www.flightaware.com/live/fleet/WJA/cancelled Is usually fairly quick to update.

[Acey]

Originally Posted by Jimmy Stang

Is there a list somewhere? Mine is still saying “on time” for 10:10 tomorrow. But I can only imagine the chaos at the airport.

I guess I’ll keep checking the status. Plan B is to drive, and while not ideal, I’m stubbornly determined to have a week away.

I'm logged directly into the airport system right now... oficially scrubbed right now for Saturday from YYC is

WS103 to YVR
WS230 to YHZ
WS2246 to PVR
WS262 to YXE
WS1578 to DTW
WS1426 to BNA
WS358 to YXE
WS253 to YEG

Those 8 haven't changed in the last hour. I see only maybe ~12 collectively scrubbed out of YVR/YEG/YYZ combined so I dunno where 150 is coming from but there will certainly be more as the night goes. I'll update as I can but I can say the aiport itself is preparing for 90% of WestJet to scrub.

[btimbit]

The 150 is just from a friend that overshares with me knowing I want to learn as much as I can about the industry since I started flight school.
The exact wording he shared is "Between tonight and tomorrow, we will begin to cancel 150 flights" so reading between the lines I guess that means not all are officially cancelled yet

Edit: I'll reiterate from what I said a page or two again though, keep in mind my info is secondhand, and frankly most of his is as well since he works at WJ, but not in an airport role.
A lot of these company emails have been getting shared on reddit too though. That's where I got the bit about discipline and WJ not 'considering this action to be a sanctioned disruption'

[Jimmy Stang]

Not mine yet (WS 195 to YYJ). But I’m a realist. I just hope that if it is going to get cancelled, it gets cancelled before I go and screw around at the airport with a wife and kid in tow.

Thanks for all of the “insider” info. I’ll see what the night and morning brings, but I genuinely appreciate the updates.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by Jimmy Stang

Not mine yet (WS 195 to YYJ). But I’m a realist. I just hope that if it is going to get cancelled, it gets cancelled before I go and screw around at the airport with a wife and kid in tow.

Thanks for all of the “insider” info. I’ll see what the night and morning brings, but I genuinely appreciate the updates.

I think it’s going to depend on whether or not your specific plans is due to be checked by the mechanics either at or before the time of your flight. I have no idea what the maintenance check schedules are like for flights but if they are required to check every plane before takeoff expect it to get canceled