seanessay.com
I thought I was safe, my jet tickets and hotel all fully paid for. “Paid for” is important, because right after my next trip, early next year, I will officially become a starving pensioner, like my friends. … I may well have my last ever trip by air.
With Trudeau as our prime minister, I’m not surprised at how government’s failure to re-hire staff for passport offices and and airports has meant, for the former, horror stories and overnight camp-out lineups; and for the latter, Toronto’s airport being judged “the worst in the world” for delays, lost luggage and discontinued flights. Horror stories.
Today on the radio I listened to an adventurous German being interviewed. He flew here to Calgary so he could bicycle due south all the way to Argentina. They lost his stuff. It’s in Vancouver. While the airport wouldn’t give him any information, “informed sources” have told him that his bicycle and camping equipment are lost in a huge Vancouver hanger where it will “take a month” to return his stuff.
Meanwhile, I thought I was safe. I returned from London in May this year; in June WestJet sent me an e-mail advertising a nice sale from now to early next year. I noted that WestJet would be flying only to Gatwick, not Heathrow, after October 31: Hallowe’en to us Canadians. That’s great, because I always fly to Gatwick with Westjet, except for my last trip—where I discovered the (sarcasm) “joy of Heathrow”: No toilets anywhere near the gate halls. No fans or air conditioning in their tiny gate waiting rooms, and really long lineups down the hall—I had to traipse a long way to the front to make sure the line was for my specific gate. (The folks I asked weren’t sure)
A seat sale? To Gatwick? Fine. I chose the last month the sale (officially) allowed, February 2023. Surely the ongoing messy airport confusion and canceled flights would be long over by then. I realized the Ukraine war would mean high jet fuel prices for traveling by next year, but that’s why I grabbed the sale. I thought I was safe.
This week WestJet sent me an e-mail:
QUOTE
Hello Sean Crawford,
Due to network adjustments impacting our flight schedules, we’re sorry to advise you that it has been necessary to cancel one or more of your WestJet flights.
Unfortunately, we are unable to offer you an alternative WestJet flight a this time. You have two options below for the next steps. If you do not select one of the options below within 10 days of receiving this email, the full value of your ticket will automatically be refunded to your original form of payment.
(The “options” were refund or change booking)
…
Given the advance notice being provided for these changes, standards of treatment and compensation entitlements are not applicable…
UNQUOTE
My jet fare, being on sale, is not much cash if I do a refund, not nearly enough cash to book another non-sale holiday, let alone book after prices rise. And of course I would never expect the airline to afford to reimburse my hotel fee, as 21 nights is a lot of cash.
Too bad my Central London hotel “cannot be canceled or refunded,” not for any nights at all.
(Footnote: I tried to google “network adjustments.” It seems to mean changing airports and routes, but I don’t quite know—I couldn’t simply phone WestJet and ask, because “volume of calls” meant that even a computer “chat” was severely delayed for my two options above)
So, after warning my boss I might be late, I parked at the airport and lined up to get to the bottom of things: Because I seem to remember a ticket lady once swivelling her computer around so we could look at dates together.
You didn’t hear this from WestJet, but my best guess, being my own “informed source,” is that for my big jet plane, a Dreamliner, it was “as if” a giant hand had picked it up and rerouted the plane to Heathrow, with a little time warp of nearly one hour later. Both ways. Same plane, same flight. Why, oh why, do they call that a cancellation? That e-mail could have given me a heart attack.
…
Post Script: I still get WestJet e-mails about sales until the end of February. No word about any “network adjustments.”
Post post script: Listeners in real life ask me, “Why always London?” If any readers in cyberspace care, I could answer in a future essay. … Say, here’s the lyrics and song links to a tune I used to hear on the kitchen radio, back in another life, “Next plane to London.” (leaving on runway number five)
…
…
Sean Crawford
Calgary
2022
Blog note: I don’t know if I’ve ever written a post so mundane. Maybe it’s time for a break from writing, we’ll see.
