Amidst “a complex and evolving situation,” Air Canada says it is closely monitoring the events in the Northwest Territories and increasing Yellowknife flights to help people evacuate to safety. The airline is also countering social media claims about inflated fares.
“With respect to pricing, there have been postings in social media about fares being elevated,” Air Canada says. “This is not correct as we proactively at the earliest possible time put in place a cap to limit fares for Air Canada’s direct flights out of Yellowknife.”
Air Canada says the examples on social media are aggregated fares by websites “which are not in line with what we are offering on our non-stop flights from Yellowknife.”
For example, AC says, some involve several stops and other carriers, with some trips lasting as long as 21 hours, when a normal non-stop Yellowknife-Calgary flight is two hours.
“We endeavour to get these aggregated fares corrected where possible – however, customers should always ensure they are purchasing the non-stop fares directly from the aircanada.com website or from a travel agent to avoid the multi-leg routings.”
The airline says it monitors the pricing on aircanada.com to ensure that capped fares continue to display as intended. “Sometimes it requires taking steps to correct fares manually when they may not display as they should due to certain technical factors. Rest assured, we get these corrected as soon as possible, and we refund passengers who inadvertently purchase a fare before it gets corrected by our team.”
Yesterday, Air Canada added two extra flights, doubling the normal frequencies to four. It also substituted a larger 169-seat Boeing 737 for one of those flights to provide extra seat availability.
Today, Friday, August 18, Air Canada has added an extra B737 flight in addition to the usual two flights.
With today set as the deadline for evacuation, AC says there will be no flights to or from Yellowknife on Saturday. “We plan to operate as the situation permits,” AC says. The airline has also put in place a goodwill policy for customers to change their flights booked for travel up to August 30, or to obtain a full refund.
“Thank you for your patience as our people are working hard to get you to a safe destination. We will be ready to fly you back home as soon as it is safe to do so,” the Air Canada statement concludes.
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