Canada's biggest airlines are making further flight reductions, citing staffing levels due to the Omicron variant and traveller hesitancy due to government travel advisories and testing requirements.
WestJet announced yesterday that it will consolidate 20% of its scheduled flights for the month of February. The latest flight reductions are in addition to approximately 15% of of flights announced early in January.
"As we continue to navigate the unpredictability of the Omicron variant on our staffing levels along with the ongoing barriers to international travel, we are making every effort to proactively manage our schedule in order to minimize disruption to our guests' travel plans," said Harry Taylor, interim WestJet Group president and CEO.
"We continue to advocate for the elimination of cumbersome travel rules that are unnecessarily impacting Canadians and prolonging the recovery of the travel and tourism sector," Taylor said in a news release.
WestJet says affected travellers will be notified of changes to their itineraries via email.
Travellers are being asked to use self-serve options before calling WestJet for assistance. The company said its flexible change and cancel guidelines and schedule change refund policies remain in place.
While Air Canada has not announced major flight consolidations, it cancelled 15% of its flights in March and 11% in February -- 6,805 flights in total -- within the last two weeks alone, according to figures from airline data company Cirium.
"We continue to monitor and adjust our schedule in response to government regulations and other factors, as we have done since the pandemic began. However we have no update on schedule changes that we previously enacted," Air Canada spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick told the Toronto Star in an email.
The Montreal-based company announced earlier this month that it was suspending flights to at least 14 Caribbean destinations "in light of the current pandemic context," effective January 24 through April 30.
The cuts come after Transat cancelled nearly 30% of its flights for January and February.
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