WestJet accused of tricky manoeuvre to deny dozens of passengers compensation after flight cancellations

Brad Vanderwilk and his lady friend were battle of midway through and through dinner party on the endure night of their Mexican vacation in March when their phones pinged — an email from WestJet saying their flight from Los Cabos to Edmonton the next day had been cancelled.

"We stopped eating because we're like, 'How are we gonna get home?'" said Vanderwilk. "We've got our kids at home. We both have to work. We went into a bit of a tizzy."

Instead of a direct flight back, the couple were rerouted through Victoria, forced to stay overnight and arrived home 16 hours late.

Under Canada's Air Passenger Protection Regulations (APPR), delays of more than nine hours can trigger compensation of $1,000 per person — but only if the delay is within the airline's control and not required for safety.

Vanderwilk filed for compensation, but WestJet denied the claim, citing "unscheduled maintenance required for safety."

But flight records reviewed by Go Public raise questions about that explanation. 

According to flight data, WestJet replaced the aircraft scheduled for Vanderwilk's route with a different plane — one that had already been grounded for two days. 

Then, in the same minute, the flight was cancelled. 

Records also show the original aircraft was reassigned to another route that day.

"I feel lied to and cheated," said Vanderwilk. "They're just trying to do what they can to not pay anybody anything." 

His case is not isolated.

After a previous Go Public report into similar complaints, dozens of passengers came forward with nearly identical stories. Go Public analyzed flight data tied to those complaints and identified 34 cases where passengers were denied compensation after their aircraft were swapped — in some instances, within minutes of cancellation.

In each case, WestJet cited safety-related maintenance.

"I just feel completely blindsided," said Viren Harjani, whose flight from Toronto to Montego Bay was cancelled last December. 

"They're lying to our face," said Simon Turcotte-Langevin, who missed two days of vacation after his Montreal to Puerto Plata flight was cancelled. 

"It's unethical," said Lucy Pascal, whose Calgary-to-Puerto Vallarta flight was cancelled. "That pisses me off."

In multiple cases reviewed by Go Public, the replacement aircraft had not flown anywhere for at least a full day before being assigned to a flight that was ultimately cancelled.

A Vancouver lawyer who specializes in air passenger rights and consumer law says that timeline matters.

"There must be a cause and effect," said Simon Lin. "Clearly this will not be the case if it [a plane] was already under maintenance and there's no possibility of taking off."

If a plane was already known to be unfit to fly, he says, using it to justify a last-minute cancellation raises serious questions about whether the disruption was truly unavoidable.

WestJet declined an interview request. In a written statement, the airline said that planes are sometimes swapped to minimize "disruption for the greatest number of guests overall."

WestJet did not answer questions about why aircraft were swapped shortly before the cancellations and passengers were denied compensation.

The founder of Air Passenger Rights says the data points to a deliberate strategy.

"There's a pattern of a good aircraft being swapped with a bad one and then passengers are being told, 'Sorry, the aircraft broke down,'" said Gábor Lukács.

"It is called fraud. There's no other way to describe it."

Lukács says airlines routinely make operational decisions about aircraft, but transparency is key. 

"It is swapping and then pretending that it was a maintenance and safety-related cancellation. That is what is fraudulent."

He notes that Canada's airline regulator, the Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA), has previously ruled against WestJet in a similar 2022 case involving an aircraft swap — yet the practice appears to persist.

"It keeps happening again and again," said Lukács. "There are no consequences." 

The financial stakes are significant.

Based on rough calculations, Lukács estimates WestJet can avoid paying roughly $75,000 per cancelled flight at the low end — and as much as $200,000 when delays exceed nine hours.

He wants the CTA to send a strong message. "Certainly a good start would be looking at each passenger who was provided false information," said Lukács. "And fining the airline $25,000 per passenger for each lie that they have said." 

The CTA declined an interview, citing an active enforcement investigation launched after Go Public's earlier reporting on aircraft swaps.

"The CTA takes allegations of tariff breaches seriously," a spokesperson wrote in a statement.

The regulator did not say whether the additional 34 cases raise further concern.

Vanderwilk and several other passengers say they challenged WestJet's explanation and asked for specifics — including what maintenance issue caused their flight to be cancelled and when it was first identified.

They say the airline refused to provide answers.

Lin, the lawyer, says that could fall short of legal requirements.

"Just providing a label, 'unplanned maintenance', is not sufficient," said Lin.

He points to a CTA decision that requires airlines to give passengers enough information to understand the cause of a disruption, evaluate whether to challenge it and reconcile any discrepancies between initial explanations and later claims.

In his final exchange with WestJet, Vanderwilk presented flight data and asked how a plane could be swapped in and his flight cancelled in the exact same minute. 

He says the airline never addressed his question.

"It's all very frustrating," he said. "There was just, 'We consider this case closed, we're no longer looking into it.'"

Now, he's preparing to take the airline to small claims court.

"They're not acting in good faith," said Vanderwilk. "They should be just doing what is expected of them as a national carrier."

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