Ottawa: Amid inclement weather, WestJet announced cancellation of flights various airports including the Greater Toronto Area on Friday.
WestJet said it had cancelled all flights scheduled to take off and land at Toronto Pearson Airport from Friday morning.
The airline says it expects flights to resume from Saturday but it all depends on the weather.
The airline said that due to this decision, 140 flights will be canceled at five airports, Ottawa International Airport (YOW), London International Airport (YXU), Region of Waterloo International Airport (YKF) and Montreal Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport (YUL).
WestJet airline wrote in a tweet, “Due to a winter storm scheduled to impact Vancouver and Southern BC, we’ve cancelled all flights arriving and departing Vancouver, Abbotsford, Victoria, Nanaimo and Comox until the afternoon of December 23, pending conditions.”
The airline said all affected travellers have been informed. WestJet’s chief operations officer, Diederik Pen, said in a statement that the decision to cancel flights is very difficult, but it was also necessary because it is more important to fly safe flights. He also said that once the weather improves, the work will continue as before without any disruption.
Meanwhile, Air Canada also reported the cancellation of several domestic flights citing bad weather but international flights will continue as per schedule.
The airline said that in the evening, its flights left as usual for Hawaii, Mexico, Korea and Japan, as well as the US and the Pacific.
Airport authorities are appealing travellers to coordinate with their airline as the storm is likely to affect the airport’s operations.