WestJet suspends all transborder and international flights as of March 22 for 30 days

Late last night WestJet announced they will suspend all transborder and international flights as of 11:59pm MT on March 22 for 30 days.

"To be clear, this means our final commercially scheduled flights from international and transborder destinations will launch on Sunday night by 11:59 p.m. local time; after that, we will be operating rescue and repatriation flights with our partners. As of tonight, international and transborder tickets are no longer available for sale during this 30 day period." said Ed Sims on the WestJet blog.

And WestJet posted the following course of actions for passengers who have such flights booked (yours truly included)

If you have an existing booking, for:

1. a flight within Canada that departs anytime -- no action is required. We will contact you if your flight is affected.
2. an international flight that departs all travel segments prior to 11:59 p.m. local time on Sunday March 22 -- no action is required. We will contact you if your flight is affected.
3. an international flight with the first segment departing after 11:59 p.m. local time on Sunday, March 22.
1. most flights can be changed or cancelled online with Manage Trips
2. if you are unable to change or cancel your flight online, we will contact you with flight options
4. an international flight and have started your trip, but plan to return to Canada on a flight that departs after 11:59 p.m. local time on Sunday March 22.
   1. there may be flights available for you to return to Canada prior to 11:59 p.m. local time on Sunday March 22. Please check westjet.com for availability and manage your flight via Manage trips on our website.
   2. if you are unable to secure a flight back to Canada on WestJet, please contact the Canadian Government via travel.gc.ca to register for possible repatriation

If you are booked on any of those flights affected after 11:59pm on March 22 you should now be entitled to a full refund of your flights rather than a credit towards future travel.

I haven't logged in to try to manage my trip yet on WestJet.com to see if cancelling online will trigger the full refund and the return of our companion vouchers nor will I call in just yet as our flights aren't until the middle of April and I don't want to contribute to inundating their call centre and systems. I'll give a few weeks still and then proceed to cancel the flights. As is recommended by WestJet and most other airlines - if you aren't travelling within 72 hours please wait to call.

This news has been added to our COVID-19 Resource Page

Image via WestJet