Intense cold forces flight delays, cancellations at Canadian airports

Guilherme Holtz and his family spent 11 hours on a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Toronto and were looking forward to getting home to Quebec City by Saturday morning.

But it seems that the family will have wait at least a few more hours after their connecting flight scheduled for 8 a.m. was cancelled. He said the family was booked on another flight at 6 p.m.

Holtz says the lengthy flight and the long wait have been exhausting for him.

“I’m hoping that it stays like that there’s no more cancellations, and we can go home,” he said in an interview at Toronto Pearson International Airport.

“(I am) very tired and we just want to get home, but it’s 10 hours more to do all this whole trip, it’s very long.”

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Holtz isn’t alone. Bitter cold weather sweeping the country has led to flight delays or cancellations at most of Canada’s major airports.

More than 20 per cent of more than 900 flights arriving and departing Pearson airport have been cancelled in the past 24 hours, according to the airport’s website. Another 20 per cent have been delayed.

Environment Canada said much of Ontario was facing a big freeze Saturday, when wind chill temperatures in Toronto and Ottawa got below 30 C.

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The frigid temperatures will persist through the weekend and could be paired with some significant snowfall of between 15 and 30 centimetres is possible in Toronto and all of southern Ontario on Sunday. The weather agency is warning of significant reduced visibility with strong winds gusts up to 50 kilometres per hour throughout the day.

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The cold will let up at least slightly come Monday.

In a statement posted on social media, Toronto Person International Airport said it was closely monitoring the impact of the winter storm on its operations as it is preparing to respond to snow fall starting Sunday morning.

“Crews at our Airfield Maintenance Facility are ready for snow removal operations across the airfield, including runways, taxiways, and apron areas, with more than 100 pieces of equipment,” it said.

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The airport authority is calling on passengers to check the status of their flights before heading to the airport.

WestJet had similar advisories that included airports in Halifax, Moncton and Quebec City, as well as south of the border in Atlanta, Houston and New York City.

From New Brunswick through to Alberta, residents have been hunkered down to wait out a bone-chilling cold snap, such as parts of the Prairies expected to reach lows of -55 C with the wind chill.

Air Canada said in a notice on its website that extreme cold at Toronto and Montreal airports is causing delays, and that customers can rebook at no cost.

A severe winter storm has been causing widespread disruption across the United States, forcing the cancellation of thousands of flights, including some destined for Canada.

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The flight cancellations and delays impacted many southbound travellers including Scott Lang and his wife, who were waiting at the airport for their flights to Cancun for a family get-together.

Lang said Air Canada cancelled the couple’s direct flight three days ago and then rescheduled it with one layover in Houston, Texas, for Saturday morning.

But then he received another text from the airline at 3 a.m. to inform him that their flight had been cancelled for the second time due to severe weather conditions in Houston.

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Lang said he normally doesn’t check his text messages overnight, but he was worried after he had heard about the weather conditions.

“I just had this gut feeling that something was going to happen,” he said.

“I just happened to get up and check it and I saw the message. If I hadn’t seen it and we got up at eight o’clock this morning. I would have probably been in trouble.”

The next few hours were hectic. The couple started making frantic phone calls, checking different website, hoping to find a flight.

He booked a WestJet flight for Sunday, which he cancelled after his wife found a direct Flair flight to Cancun for Saturday. Shortly after, Air Canada also told them it had found another flight for them which they had to cancel.

Air Canada and WestJet offered travel credits but the couple want full refund.

“All I can say is at 3 o’clock in the morning, my only interest was getting on an airplane,” Land said. “Over the next week or so or when we get back home, we may have a phone call with Air Canada and say, hey, you got to do something better.”