Sunwing Is Apologizing To Canadians & The CEO Says They Had 'Clear Failures In Execution'
After a holiday season full of cancelled flights and overall travel chaos, Sunwing Airlines is apologizing to its customers.
On January 5, CEO Stephen Hunter put out a statement to explain what really went wrong and said they are "incredibly sorry" for letting customers down.
"Sunwing was founded on a promise to help make Canadians' vacation dreams come true," he said.
"We are astutely aware that, for too many Canadians, we failed to live up to that promise this holiday season."
Sunwing has been plagued with travel disruptions and faced backlash for cancelling international flights, leaving hundreds of passengers stuck in Mexico over the holidays.
In the statement, Hunter shared that there were "clear failures in execution" of the airline's response to weather related delays.
The "aftermath of severe weather disruptions" limited Sunwing's ability to move its aircraft and crew to other airports to ease the flight backlogs.
"As a carrier scaling up to meet our highest demand in years, we built an achievable plan which, due to a confluence of factors, we could no longer deliver," he added. "We regret that we did not meet the level of service our customers expect from Sunwing."
The statement highlighted what the airline is doing to lessen further delays, such as using aircrafts from airline partners to bring people back home.
Hunter also added that, as of now, all the recovery flights have been completed and there's a "roadmap" to ensure that these issues don't happen again.
"This includes proactively working on a mitigation plan to address some technical issues with flight alert notifications, and enhancing the communication flow to our customers," he said.
Sunwing also reduced its capacity in January to make sure there are as few disruptions as possible to customers going forward in the winter season.
"We know that we cannot replace the time lost or disruption experienced during this holiday season, but we would like to reassure our customers that we are committed to doing better."
What should you do if you were affected by Sunwing's delays?
The airline is currently accepting eligible claims for compensation.
Customers may submit their claims or submit receipts for related expenses incurred in destination, to Sunwing Cares for review.
This includes receipts for reasonable expenses, like purchases of necessities due to a baggage belt issue at Toronto Pearson International Airport, which impacted customers who travelled from December 24 to 27, 2022.
This article's cover image was used for illustrative purposes only.
