Canada Global (Web News) Ahead of Christmas weekend, a significant winter storm is ruining thousands of Canadians’ holiday travel plans.
This week’s weather-related flight delays and cancellations number in the hundreds, and more are predicted as strong winds, significant snowfall, and possibly flash freezing conditions are predicted for several regions of the nation.
WestJet “proactively” cancelled flights at airports in Ontario, Quebec, and British Columbia due to the severe weather.
All flights planned to arrive at or depart from Toronto’s Pearson International Airport starting on Friday at 9 a.m. ET through Saturday are affected by the cancellations, according to the airline.
Between 11:50 p.m. Pacific time on Thursday and late on Friday, all scheduled flights into and out of Vancouver International Airport were likewise cancelled.
Other airports with impacted service include those in Ottawa, London, Ontario, Montreal, Waterloo, Ontario, Abbotsford, British Columbia, Victoria, Nanaimo, British Columbia, and Comox, British Columbia.
300 flights that WestJet had scheduled for Friday in the Vancouver area, on Vancouver Island, and in southern Ontario and Quebec had already been cancelled as of Friday morning. In addition, 214 cancellations were made for Thursday and 15 were made on Saturday.