Carl and Heather Wozney headed to the airport first thing Friday morning to enjoy the perks of a direct Flair Airlines flight to sunny Tucson, Arizona.
The first thing they saw was a mom comforting her two little girls crying their eyes out in disappointment that the flight was cancelled with no notice.
“It’s a four-hour flight away from four feet of snow,” Carl said. “We booked this about four months ago and we thought this was just a grand thing - any direct flight – anything to keep us out of YVR – is great.”
But it wasn’t to be, on the first day of spring break for school-aged kids.
“We got a house sitter for our two pets, we’ve booked hotels down in Tuscon, we’ve rented a car and we get there and there’s a note at the Flair booth,” Carl said. “There’s not even anyone at the Flair booth. No agent, just this note.”
On the note it said customers affected by the cancellation could call the Customer Solutions number and when people tried to call it was a wrong number.
“People were just gathered around the booth in disbelief with their jaws dropped,” Carl said. “I thought I would support any airline that would provide a direct flight out of Prince George but it’s been a horrible experience. People should be aware of this and the problem is that this small independent airline has no affiliation to a major airline so they can’t reschedule a later flight and they can’t accommodate you at all.”
These flights are a round trip so there are Prince George residents in Tuscon that were expected to return home Friday that are left stranded as well.
Flair said it was reviewing the circumstances, but believes the cancellation was due to a crew shortage on Friday at Tucson.
“The airline regrets the inconvenience to our passengers. They will be re-accommodated on the next Flair Airlines flight to Prince George from Tucson.”
