Headline News By Peter Tremblay 432 Views

Edmonton couple receives $1,800 in compensation from WestJet

An Edmonton couple, have been paid $900 each, for getting bumped off their WestJet flighton their way to their honeymoon in July.Chelsea Williamson and her husband had complained about the troubling incident to the Canadian Transport Agency (CTA), seeking compensation.

"The process takes time,"  Williamson told Global News on Thursday. "I felt pretty strongly that I had a good argument, to begin with. I think that's why I reached out to WestJet through the various outlets available and then made the complaint to the CTA.”

Following the complaint from the couple, the Canadian Transportation Agency had then launched an inquiry into WestJet policies.

“When I chatted with the CTA, the investigator who was working with me thought I presented a very clear, straightforward argument to the airline company and she didn’t see any issues with what I was asking the airline company to do,” Williamson said. “She wasn’t making a judgment call, saying, ‘You’re right, you’re wrong,’ she was just saying, ‘You know, the way I’m reading it and the way you’re presenting it, I think the airline should respond favourably.'”

The couple had shown up at the airport gate for their July 22 honeymoon flight but were told by WestJet officials, that told they no longer had seats on the flight. The airline had then split up the newlyweds, placing them on two different flights. They arrived in Venice five hours later than originally scheduled.

“While abroad in Italy I contacted WestJet via direct Twitter message where I received information that a change of aircraft and overselling of tickets by WestJet’s partner airline, Delta, was the cause for the change in our itinerary,” Williamson said

She contacted the airline again after she returned home from their honeymoon and, WestJet guest support told the reason she and her husband had been bumped from the flight was because the airliner had changed the aircraft to a smaller one with fewer seats.

“Anytime any new rules are put into place there’s going to be some learning curves so I’m hoping that our case was just one of those,” Williamson said.

“I think it was definitely a learning moment for WestJet.”

After the CTA investigation, a new passenger bill of rights has now been put in place to compensate travellers who might be inconvenienced by airlines in the future. Williamson appears content with this new development,

“It definitely helped us out,” she said.

“[The CTA investigator I dealt with] said it’s really up to the airline and whether they choose to acknowledge it (the mistake) in the informal process, and had I not been satisfied with WestJet’s response informally, then I could have taken my argument to the formal adjudication process where the CTA would have made an actual decision.

"So in terms of the air passenger regulations, without them, we definitely would not have gotten the compensation because I wouldn't have argued for it."

“They had called me personally after the CTA had reached out to them on my behalf, apologizing for what had happened and how the staff weren’t aware of, I guess, how… [what] was happening was in alignment with… some of the new rights with the air passenger regulations,” she said, quoted on Global News.

“And then they were very speedy about getting us the compensation as soon as possible.”



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