Canadian airline Westjet (WS), this weekend flights were sent into disarray, as many of its flights across its network were delayed due to a widespread technology outage.
Passengers commented on waiting for over 3.5 hours to check in, as the airline had to revert to alternative methods in the meantime. Westjet attempted to communicate with customers throughout the black-out period, however understandably passengers grew increasingly frustrated. WestJet media relations adviser Madison Kruger advised in an email statement:
"We apologize for the inconvenience this is causing guests, as unfortunately, the impact of the outage is still being felt across our operations and is now resulting in additional cancellations and growing delays."
"All systems are now online and stable. We unfortunately anticipate further disruptions as we work to recover from the system-wide outage. We are sincerely sorry for the significant inconvenience".
Long waiting times at airports
Passengers, unfortunately, had to wait for hours to board their flights across the airline's network, and for some, this meant missing important connections. One passenger noted that she waited for over five hours at Calgary Airport before departing.
Both Calgary International Airport (YYC) and Vancouver International Airport (YVR) attempted to warn customers about the potential delays, with Calgary advising it was a ''Global IT issue''. Calgary airport also shared on Twitter:
Vancouver Airport, also posted on its website:
WestJet’s operations are currently being impacted by a system-wide outage that began on November 5, 2022. All systems are now online and stable. The impact of the outage is resulted in delays and cancellations of WestJet flights at Vancouver International Airport (YVR).
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Issue now resolved
At 6 am on Sunday, from its headquarters, the airline announced that the systems are now back in action and stable. However, a knock-on effect may be felt in the coming days.
The airline advised that the outage only required one cancelation, however as expected and noted above, a significant number of delays across the network should be expected.
Due to the outage, the airline's call center staff were unable to access any passenger reservation details.
Not the first outage this year
This is not the first time passengers have been left stranded with Westjet, on July 14 this year, an IT outage from the airline, combined with Canada's air navigation NAV Canada experienced their own system outage. These malfunctions caused major disruptions for passengers across Canada.
The outage at Westjet on this occasion again affected the activities of check-in, planning, gate services, and payment, among other tasks. The pain continued when systems had been mostly restored, but unmanned bag-drop services were still malfunctioning at Calgary International Airport (YYC), Ottawa International Airport (YOW), Saskatoon John G. Diefenbaker International Airport (YXE), and Halifax Stanfield International Airport (YHZ).
Since check-in and bag-drop services were affected, many Canadian airports saw long lines of passengers waiting to get their boarding passes and bag tags. Some pilots couldn’t access their flight plans due to the system's outage. Major airports like Toronto Pearson International Airport (YYZ) and Calgary (YYC) were affected the worst.
Let's hope there isn't another outage as we head closer to the peak travel demands of the festive season.
Sources: Daily Hive, Global News Canada, CTV News, CBC