Wednesday morning brought about another sad announcement by Canadian airline WestJet. CEO Ed Sims announced that the company will be indefinitely suspending service to four major cities in Atlantic Canada. Moncton, Sydney, Charlottetown, and Quebec City will no longer house any in or outbound flights from the carrier starting November 2. Halifax and St. John’s will still see flights but a drastically reduced volume.
Effective November 2, we will be suspending our operations to Moncton, Fredericton, Sydney, Charlottetown and Quebec City while significantly reducing service to Halifax and St. John’s. This is a result of the impact of domestic quarantines, and continued decrease in demand. pic.twitter.com/78sr9PSz3v
— WestJet (@WestJet) October 14, 2020
Courtesy: Twitter/@WestJet
Charlotte Tweed is a travel agent trying to navigate this complicated COVID world. She voiced her concerns about these cancellations. “Now there’s gonna be more WestJet employees laid off that were scheduled to come back to work next month are going to lose their jobs. There’s also a greater picture here which is: how many people are going to lose their homes and their businesses and be crushed in other ways?” She added that she knows numerous people who work for the company that absolutely adore it and love their jobs. She said her heart is breaking for them to have to go through this.
Working through this pandemic has been challenging for many but it has been especially tough on the travel industry “Every airline and everyone in the travel industry has literally been brought to their knees.” Charlotte added that she and many of her colleagues believe that the only way to restore their business and many others is to look into other ways of control rather than just border closures.