The WestJet Fiasco

A cautionary Tale on Contingency Planning

Photo by John McArthur on Unsplash

On June 28th at about 11pm after a refreshing vacation in Mexico, the first since 2018, I received the news the there was a flight disruption. My flight was scheduled to take off the next day, everything was packed and ready to go. I had followed my obligations in the contract I had entered into with Westjet. I had measured my luggage, ensured everything was compliant with airline rules and completed my check in. It’s a good thing that I wasn’t sleeping yet or else I would not have known until the morning. The E-mail told me that they were working to secure alternate flight arrangements due to a potential labor action. 30 minutes later I received an E-mail that WestJet was unable to find alternate accommodations, that I would need to find my own and they would reimburse me up to $200 a night. I received another E-mail saying I was booked onto a flight for July 2nd. That would be the last official communication with WestJet with me.

I needed to be back in Canada before July 2nd and was worried that if the strike continued that I would be stranded for longer as even if they had it dealt with soon it would take time to put the appropriate personnel in place where they were needed to resume operations. So I did what everyone else did, I phoned them to try to find an alternative resolution seeing that there were flights available on competitor airlines. I was on hold for over three hours before I finally gave up. Pictures others have posted online show wait times of 12-14hrs before either giving up or being disconnected. I went to WestJet’s website where there was one update announcing the delays. Finally I decided to get some sleep and try again in a few hours. Three hours later I was up and trying again. I also tried to contact my trip insurance provider who also put me on hold and then after 40 minutes the line hung up on me which occurred three times before I gave up on that plan as well to get them to book me into alternate travel arrangements. In desperation to talk to a real person I drove to the airport.

At the airport I waited for about three hours with a line up of other people who were also in similar circumstances. I spoke to an old couple who were very confused and unsure of what was going on, they had not been re-booked onto another flight. I checked the website and only one small update had occurred. I checked the X accounts of the WestJet executives and there was little updates to be had, the official WestJet account was silent. More people started showing up and it was obvious that everyone was on different pages. Some people received information that they had been booked onto their arrival flights that occurred already. People were receiving boarding passes for cancelled flights and everyone had tried calling and left on hold. The WestJet app on my phone just simply stopped working. I couldn’t get ahold of my trip insurance company either still. Basically we were all stuck in limbo. The company had ceased communication. When communication stops speculation, fear, panic and anger set in. Realizing that no one was going to be showing up to the desk, I left the airport.

I ended making a post on X about it. I wasn’t very happy. The post garnered some attention and others began posting about their experience as well. I weighed my options as the day progressed and it did not appear that there was going to be resolution and I still couldn’t get ahold of my insurance company. I ended up booking a flight with a competitor and paying for one more night stay. The last day of June I travelled stayed overnight in Vancouver and came home late in the afternoon on Canada Day. Word was that the strike was over however flight delays and cancellations were still occurring. As I suspected it was going to take some time to maneuver the right people in place and get back to a sense of normalcy.

As I write this I have spent the majority of the day getting receipts in order and preparing to submit a claim to WestJet. I still have not been able to get ahold of a human to speak to. I can only hope that WestJet will do the right thing and not drag everyone through the OTC and Claims Court. I am out several thousand dollars figuring out the problem myself. There’s several lessons to be learned here and I am going to outline some ideas and strategies that I believe WestJet could have employed.

Contingency Planning

There had been grumblings of potential strike action however the Government had intervened with arbitration in order to avert a strike, which the Union agreed to as well as the Company. WestJet no doubt had assumed that since both parties had agreed to binding arbitration that strike action, on Canada’s busiest weekend of the year, was not going to be a possibility. When it did occur it was obvious that things had quickly fallen off the rails. In most organizations risk management and tolerance is measured by probability. It had appeared that the issue had been mitigated but yet this is the situation that occurred regardless. This is why it’s better to be prepared and not require contingency plans then assume things will go well.

Contingency planning is often placed on the backburner to operational requirements of the day to day needs. Emergency planning is relegated to dusty tomes updated annually or bi-annually as a Corporate policy but often lacks the robust detail needed to activate quickly on the fly. This is normal for many organizations as it is a dry process to do. People already busy with day to day operations don’t like to sit around and fantasize about unlikely what if situations to come up with elaborate work arounds. With large organizations, people move around often so names and positions to be filled into a spreadsheet one day are obsolete next week. Dry runs, table top exercises and emergency planning revolving around labor action or non sensational situations are difficult to pull off and don’t lead to a high level of engagement. It’s just human nature and the nature of business. However when these situations end up occurring they become black swan style events where things go off the rails in rapid succession.

In the event these situations do occur it is critical to establish an emergency chain of command that bypasses regular often red-taped processes. There must be an established path to gaining a foothold and then a push towards stabilization. People may have to assume roles or responsibilities above or below them quickly and people often used to not doing front facing work need to be willing to sit beside those that do to help out. A real, “roll up your sleeves” approach may be needed from people who are used to meetings, charts and spreadsheets. In an emergency the Chain of Command established must be respected as people may be reporting to different people and the expectations are different as the stakes are higher. The airline industry has a million plans for physical risk but it appears that WestJet has not developed a robust policy for sudden large scale cancellations not related to violent or tragic circumstances. In those types of situations, no one is going to be upset if their flight is cancelled but people expect that these types of situations have an effective mitigation policy.

Communication

One of the first things that needs to occur in this type of situation is a clear line of communication must be established. People are looking for information, they may not be happy with that information but it is important that information flows regardless. Operational adjustments to call center staff, overtime and such must occur to ensure that people are receiving information. No information leads to panic, speculation and opens the doors to people receiving their information from dubious sources. In this situation, in my opinion, WestJet should have immediately began regular updates. Every ten minutes pushing out something so that people knew that they were enacting some type of contingency planning. Managers should have been put onto competitors flights to terminals everywhere to handle in person needs. Information provided mitigates some frustration. People effected should have received individual calls in a triage format from most urgent outwards. As the situation begins to stabilize then updates can come less frequently but they should only cease once every person effected has some type of resolution. WestJet declined to talk with the press but that was a foolish decision, talking with the press to get messages out is a tool that should be leveraged. There is no time for carefully polished statements driven through a PR algorithm, the information must flow. In the short term the messages may receive a lot of backlash as people are cathartic and looking to vent their frustrations but in the end it does much to retain brand image.

Recovery

Although there are plenty of aspects that could be reviewed. The final one I am going to talk about it recovery. The wide scale disruption is going to overwhelm normal resolution procedures that might occur over things like lost luggage. WestJet should immediately set up an alternate resolution system staffed to specifically handle compensation from this event. This way normal operations can resume through normal processes without mixing crisis resolution with events not related. It is critical that people effected be properly reimbursed. This should not have to go to the Government regulator. WestJet may lose a lot of money from this but if they hope to have a swift brand recovery they need to find the money and give people what they are owed. I understand that is often easier said then done but they will have to do it somehow if they intend to recover well. Dragging people through small claims court or the OTC will do significant damage to their reputation. People remember how they were treated in difficult situations more then the stress of the difficult situation. In my case the place I was staying at, when I called them to let them know I was staying one more night, moved things around so that I did not lose my room and they were very empathetic to the situation. These small things count and I will remember how I was treated after the financial shock of the situation wears off. However WestJet is not here yet, they are not in recovery mode until all passengers are where they need to be and flights are back to the new normal. As I discussed in communication above information must flow, if they communicated they were going to have a specific section assigned to managing claims and such for these cases with a separate number then they can separate the crisis from normal operations which again will help customers and staff alike.

Conclusion

I am choosing to remain optimistic that WestJet will do the right thing and that there will be big lesson learned documentation and after action reporting to occur internally. Hopefully it will result in changes that will ensure that this type of situation is properly mitigated in the future. As I start to weave myself through the process I am hoping that WestJet will not make the recovery situation more difficult then it needs to be. The recovery portion will be a big test for them as a Company to see where their loyalty lies and if they’ll be situation managers or situation leaders.

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