Sunwing cancels southbound trips from Toronto amid ongoing delays

Sunwing Airlines says all flights heading to southern destinations from Toronto Pearson International Airport on Wednesday have been cancelled as the airline works to return customers stranded abroad by a slew of recent flight delays.

The airline said in a statement on its website that the cancellations for Feb. 19 are being done to get those travellers stranded due to recent weather disruptions, availability constraints and “extremely limited” hotel capacity back home.

According to the airline, all affected customers who were to fly out of Toronto will receive a full refund to their original form of payment within 21 business days.

“This difficult but essential operational decision allows us to redirect our resources toward bringing delayed customers home as quickly and safely as possible,” the statement reads.

It’s not the only notice to Sunwing customers, which has seen flights impacted for the past several days.

Earlier on Wednesday, the airline advised travellers scheduled to depart between Feb. 13 and Feb. 19 who had experienced delays of more than 24 hours that they had the option to continue their travel as planned, cancel their flight to receive a one-year valid travel voucher, or to change their departure date, though depending on the cost of the new flight they may need to pay more or get a voucher for a lower-cost flight.

Wednesday’s cancellations come as the airline has seen multiple delays, with flights to and from Toronto seeing hours long delays to multiple southern destinations, some exceeding 24 hours.

Taylor Jeanes, a Sunwing passenger currently in Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic, says they were expected to begin their flight back to Toronto at about 10:50 p.m. on Tuesday.

That didn’t happen, leaving many stranded in the hotel lobby.

“We had over 30 people sleeping in the lobby on the couches, along with elderly people, a lot of people with small kids … it’s been very challenging for us to be able to get somewhere to feel comfortable,” Jeanes told Corus Entertainment’s AM640 Toronto.

Corus is the parent company of Global News.

Jeanes said they received a message on Tuesday morning that their flight would be delayed until Wednesday, about 24 hours after the initial flight, and were told to stay in the hotel lobby and to check “every 30 minutes” on an update for when accommodations would be arranged.

It took about 12 hours before they were finally put in new hotel rooms at 12 a.m. Wednesday morning, though they had to check out again around noon and remain in the hotel until their transfer to the airport.

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“We’re really just hoping to be able to go home tonight and hopefully get home by Thursday morning which is, again, the expectation,” Jeanes said, adding she’s disappointed with Sunwing due to the confusion and lack of answers.

She said will miss two shifts of work, including Wednesday, but noted she also faces added costs for things like extended pet care back home and even in Puerto Plata, they currently have laundry that needs to be done as well.

As of 5 p.m. Eastern, the flight from Puerto Plata to Toronto is currently scheduled to depart at 1:52 a.m. local time on Thursday morning.

The delays to Sunwing and many other airlines follow Toronto seeing two strong snowstorms that brought about 45 centimetres. Twenty centimetres fell in the middle of last week, and another 25 cm over the weekend. That was in addition to 10 cm the weekend prior.

Then, on Monday the crash of a Delta Air Lines plane at Toronto Pearson saw flights come to a stop when the aircraft from Minneapolis crash landed, flipping upside-down and catching on fire. There were no deaths, however 21 people, including a child, were taken to hospital. As of Wednesday morning, Delta said 20 had been released with one person still in hospital.

Sunwing says it is working to minimize further impact on operations and to support affected passengers.