So we are packed and ready to leave in 3 hours, sitting around the apartment killing time and doesn’t my daughter text to say our flight Ottawa to Toronto is cancelled. WHAT! I wasn’t notified, but there it was, in red, CANCELLED. I called the travel agent to see what could be done. Out of their hands they said. Westjet had redone our entire itinerary leaving the next day and getting to our destination a day late via 3 airports; Tampa, Gatwick and Lisbon leaving my daughter to fend for herself from Toronto because Westjet didn’t know we were meeting her there. They would have if they had consulted with me. “Thanks, but no I said.” An hour on hold and I told Westjet I would get myself to Toronto and they could reinstate our original booking from there as the seats were still available. “No, no she says, your agency must do this.” Ok enough run around… We paid Porter $500 to get us to Toronto and spent 3 hours running between the Azores airline counter and Westjet counter to finally get this sorted. They were all super nice and very sympathetic and Westjet came through in the end thanks to a persistent ticket agent who agreed with us that it was a big muck up on their part.
Our flight was then delayed 2 more hours due to bad weather and de-icing, but we finally took off. The plane, an airbus 340, very roomy, half empty, and they still serve free meals including beer or wine if you wish.
The de-icing (picture) was pretty cool to watch, the process took longer than I had thought it would. The planes all taxi out to a whole other area of the airport and line up to get sprayed by a series of machines.
Things are looking up (pun intended) …we are on our way.