For St. Albert’s Trudi Hendry, a one-way ticket to Fredericton, New Brunswick, turned into multiple flight delays, two cancellations, and a new friend.
This holiday season saw a high number of flights delayed and cancelled, with many not making it home in time to celebrate with their families, including some local residents who were making new connections despite their bad travel luck.
Hendry flew out to the coast to settle her father’s estate following his passing. After about three weeks, she was ready to fly back home for Dec. 17 — well ahead of Christmas. She got to the airport in time, and while waiting for the flight, she got to chatting with a fellow passenger, Lisa Sullivan, even holding her baby for her while she used the washroom.
After about five hours, the two of them realized their flight would be cancelled. When Hendry found out that WestJet was not going to provide a hotel, her new airport friend presented her with another option: stay the night at her home.
“And I'm like, are you serious? You don't even know me,” Hendry said. “She goes ‘I trust you. I think it's going to be fine. I have three bedrooms.’”
Hendry stayed the night at Sullivan’s house and they each got new flights the following day, only Hendry’s was seven hours later in the evening. Sullivan insisted she stay at her house until her flight. However, Hendry’s flight got cancelled again, and there were no flights available until two days later — again Sullivan told her she was welcome to stay.
“Just my Christmas angel was what she was,” Hendry said.
During her stay, Hendry met the downstairs neighbours who gave her some tea and bread for breakfast — and she left the place nice and clean, with a thank you note for Sullivan.
Hendry’s flight ended up being delayed again and her relatives to came to pick her up to fly out of Fredericton with Air Canada instead of Moncton with WestJet — at a much higher price. She got home Boxing Day.
“My husband and I had never not had a Christmas together, which was over 20 years,” said Hendry. “And then I missed my grandkid’s Christmas here. It was tough.”
She said that while the experience was stressful, she got a new connection out of it.
“It was Christmas from hell. But I ended up meeting a really nice person.”
“You just never know who you're gonna meet in the airport and to nowadays because there's so many crazy people out there and you have to be careful,” she said.
While some of her relatives where worried about Hendry staying at a stranger’s house, her gut knew it would work out. “I guess I just trusted my instinct.”
Mia Matton, a local travel advisor at Fareconnect, said in a statement provided to The Gazette that this year’s holiday travel season was particularly challenging.
“Travelling at the busiest time of year and with our Canadian winters always comes with a risk,” the Matton said. “However, this holiday season was one of the most chaotic I have seen in 12 years of being a travel advisor.”
Matton said that delays and cancellations in Canada were in part, the result of weather, which resulted in a “domino effect” with staff shortages following close behind. She said while not often purchased, trip cancellation and interruption insurance “is something that should always be considered.”
Surprise family reunion
For St. Albert’s Kelly Veenstra, his cancelled flight resulted in a surprise visit to Tokyo to visit his brother a nephew.
Before he left to return home from Bangkok, Thailand, he got a series of emails from Air Canada saying that his flight from Tokyo, Japan to Vancouver would be delayed close to an hour and a half. Veenstra said while he was in the air for six hours, the flight got cancelled.
“By the time I landed in Tokyo, I had 13 delay notifications and one cancellation. And they offered me the alternative of flying out two days later than I had planned.”
Veenstra couldn’t believe his luck: he normally visits his relatives in Tokyo before or after he visits Thailand, but when he booked his flight, Japan wasn’t allowing travellers into the country.
“My nephew is always looking forward to seeing me and it was a disappointment not to be able to book it. And then it ended up being booked for me.”
Veenstra said he was happy to take the offer, to the relief of the Air Canada staff.
“I think most people would have been horrified by that kind of a delay,” he said. “Most of the people in line were like, ‘we can't do that, like there's no way.’”
“It was nice to be that guy in the line who was like ‘yeah, this is doable — I'll take it.’”
It was a treat to surprise his nephew in Japan with a visit, Veenstra said with a laugh.
“That was that was probably the best part of it actually was seeing his face being totally shocked by me showing up there out of the blue.”
