Suspends All Southern Flights As Of March 17

Yesterday, Sunwing announced that the company was shifting their efforts to focus solely on repatriating customers who are currently in destination. As a result, the carrier has temporarily suspended all southbound flights from March 17th until April 9th to concentrate resources on returning customers home safely.

Tuesday, the first rescue flights departed, repatriating over 500 Canadians from countries that had announced closures of their borders. By the end of the day, the airline estimated that over 11,000 customers would be brought home to Canada. The travel company is committed to ensuring all its guests are brought safely home. Customers are returning home on their scheduled flights, with any remaining seats being used to accommodate other Sunwing customers wanting to return earlier at no additional cost. Sunwing Experiences representatives are situated in resorts across the travel company’s destinations and are available 24/7 to support customers during this time.

"This unprecedented situation has had a drastic impact on our business during a short space of time," said Mark Williams. president of Sunwing Airlines. "While we have communicated a temporary suspension of our southbound flights up until April 10th, at this time we cannot confirm when commercial southern flight operations will resume. That is why Sunwing was forced to communicate layoffs to our flight and cabin crew members yesterday evening. Our pilots and flight attendants play a crucial role in our operations and this was not a decision that we took lightly. Once we have confirmation on a return to service date of our southbound flights, we fully intend to recall our flight and cabin crew members. These are incredibly difficult decisions to make. But the circumstances we face are dire and we must take action to ensure the long-term viability of our business.

“Given the severe impact COVID-19 has had on our business, and the efforts we are putting in place to bring thousands of Canadians home, we are actively seeking government support. As an organization, we have never sought government support previously. But these are exceptional circumstances. Our customers need us and we’re doing everything we can to support them.”

(Source: Sunwing news release. Image from file)

FMI: www.sunwingtravelgroup.com