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“West Jet setting a new standard in horrible customer...”

written by GaelHooper96 on 12/02/2015

I am composing this review in hopes to alert others on the absolutely abysmal customer experience my brother and I received from Westjet on a recent round trip flight from Edmonton to London, ON and back.
Our experience began on a Thursday. After receiving the news of the death of our Grandfather the day before I booked two seats on the next available flight home and that was Thursday at 12:15pm from Edmonton. To get to our final destination of London required us to transfer in Calgary where there is only 1 flight per day to London at 1:25pm. On this day our plane arrived on time but required electrical maintenance on the emergency hatch and the flight was eventually delayed by several hours. Knowing there was little point in continuing to Calgary at that time since we already missed our connecting flight, we opted to take the hotel and meal vouchers that were offered us by Westjet and would try again the next day.
On Friday we arrived at the airport and were scheduled at 10:45am to leave Edmonton to Calgary to make the 1:25pm to London from Calgary. We were frustrated to learn that this flight had been projected to be 4 hours late for arrival due to mechanical problems in Grande Prairie where our plane was coming from. At this point we were told that we had been put on the 12:15pm to Calgary (the one we missed the day before). It wasn’t long before we learned that this flight was also delayed due to mechanical concerns with the plane. At this point we were obviously frustrated and the gate attendants were unable to tell us if we would make our transfer flight in Calgary or not. After suggesting we be re-routed to Toronto and have West Jet cover the cost of an airbus for us, we were told that is was not possible but that the Calgary flight would more than likely wait for us although they could not say for certain. At this point we could only hope for the best and boarded the plane which eventually took off over an hour later than scheduled.
Upon arriving in Calgary at 2:15pm (only 45 minutes later than scheduled) we (along with 19 other passengers attempting to get to London) were told we had missed our flight and should talk to guest services. After waiting 40 minutes in the guest services line we were told that we had been booked on a red-eye flight to London and given some meal vouchers. After waiting in the Calgary airport for 10 hours for the 11:45pm flight we were extremely annoyed to learn that our flight would be delayed for an uncertain amount of time due to not having enough flight attendants. We then learned a flight attendant from our flight was given away to another flight that had been delayed for several hours destined for Kelowna. It is at this point I should mention I did not see a single Westjet flight go off on time in those entire two days from either airport while Air Canada consistently sent flights off without a hitch. Eventually Westjet called in a flight attendant from home for us and the flight left at 1:30am.

We finally arrived in London at 6:20 am- a grand total of 36 hours later than our scheduled arrival date. The day before our return I realized I had made an error in booking our return flight and had scheduled it for the wrong month (March instead of February). I immediately called Westjet to rectify the situation and decided it would be a good time to take up a call with guest relations to see what they could do to try and salvage my business with them. I quickly learned how unwilling Westjet it is provide any sort of discount or voucher or anything else that might make a customer consider flying with them after the Fiasco I went through. In fact, I couldn’t even get the money back for my return flight that I was trying to cancel for a full month out. Eventually, I settled for Westjet waiving my re-booking fee for me to fly home a day later than I was hoping too. Please note I still paid the up-charge for booking a new flight date.
Upon arriving to the Airport in London to return to Edmonton I attempted to check in at 6:20am for the 7:00am flight. I had been waiting in line for several minutes at this point and eventually got to a free check in attendant. I was extremely frustrated to learn that I could not check in for the flight because I was late. Check in must be completed 45 minutes early and 40 minutes just would not do. I could not truly believe what had just happened. I was told I would not be able to fly back until the next day. The situation was beyond rationalization- London is a very small and quiet airport. There were only about 5 or 6 people hanging around the airport and I would have been through security in under a minute.
To me it is truly unbelievable that an airline that delivered me to my destination 36 hours later than promised would stop be from boarding a plane when I was 40 minutes early rather than 45. Westjet to this point has still done nothing to rectify my customer experience. It is truly my belief that rather than Westjet seeing it a privilege for me to become their customer and pay $1000 dollars to fly within my own country, they see it as a privilege I am able to fly with them at all.
I strongly suggest to anyone planning on flying from this point onward to consider any other possible airline than Westjet. Their customer service is simply non-existent.