From City News Vancouver – link to source story
By Aly Laube | December 26, 2021
Summary
- Flights at YVR may be delayed in the coming days due to weather and the time it takes to de-ice planes
- WestJet was well-staffed through the holiday season, but still had to delay some flights because of the weather
YVR is seeing some flight delays this weekend, but it’s not because of staffing. Instead, winter weather across the country is to blame.
As de-icing planes takes time, travellers are being advised to check ahead to make sure everything’s still on schedule they’re flying anywhere over the next few days.
In the United States, a different story.
Airports across the U.S. have been dealing with thousands of flight cancellations, with airlines such as Delta, United and JetBlue blaming the Omicron variant of COVID-19.
The last few days of December have been some of the busiest since before the pandemic first took hold.
WestJet says it expects to carry nearly 50,000 guests per day on over 475 flights during late December and early January, according to a representative of the company.
“We are not seeing similar issues to our U.S. counterparts,” said WestJet, in a statement to CityNews Vancouver. “The large majority our posted cancellations over the past 48 hours are weather-related.”
WestJet says it’s appropriately staffed to support the busy holiday travel season.
“Leading into peak season, WestJet has been actively recalling and hiring with the expectation we will reach 9,000 fully trained WestJetters by the end of the year, which is more than twice as many WestJetters as we had at our lowest point in the pandemic,” said the company.
“Additionally, we have added more than 600 new contact centre agents since June to support the increasing volume of guest support inquiries.”