Sunwing must pay for holiday travel chaos: air passenger rights advocate

Sunwing has opened a claims channel on their website.

CITYnews halifax \ Adam Inniss

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Many Canadian travellers were stranded overseas this holiday due to a communication breakdown from Sunwing Airlines. Travellers were left in Sunwing destinations for days, in some cases a week. 

Air passenger rights advocate Gábor Lukács says Sunwing will have to pay these passengers.

“Sunwing will have to pay for meals, accommodation, travel expenses, lost wages, all these kinds of out of pocket expenses,” said Lukács in an interview with CityNews Halifax.

According to Canada’s Air Passenger Protection program, Sunwing will also have to pay all affected customers $500.

But Lukács says Sunwing doesn’t seem to be in a rush to pay what they owe.

“If you’re a passenger and you don’t get what you’re owed, take Sunwing to small claims court,” said Lukács.

Travellers were left in tropical destinations as emergency flights departed with many empty seats. Notifications on flight times came hours late or didn’t arrive at all. At airports across Canada, baggage was misplaced and flights were delayed or cancelled.

Sunwing says all stranded passengers have now returned home.

The chair of the Canada’s house of commons Transport Committee, Peter Schiefke, called the debacle “unacceptable” in a Tweet and is calling on Sunwing to explain what happened publicly.

In a press release on January 5, Sunwing apologized and is accepting financial claims on their website.

“We are incredibly sorry for letting our customers down,” read the release.

Sunwing did not give a direct reason for the communication errors, but pointed at the increase in travelling over the holidays and the pressure put on airlines by the pandemic, as well as weather related delays in Canada.