We flew three times with WestJet while in Canada and something went wrong with every single flight.

We are from Australia and I would say that it's fairly well aligned with our budget air offering here - Jetstar. They do have pretty cheap fares and a fairly wide offering as far as flight destinations go but they aren't the most reliable and I DEFINITELY wouldn't book with them if I was depending on a time sensitive service.

Our first flight from Vancouver to Calgary was the least eventful. Nothing major but flight was delayed about an hour due to some kind of mystery medical emergency.

Second flight was an unmitigated disaster. We arrived early for our flight from Calgary to Kelowna. Unfortunately it was cancelled due to "unexpected maintenance" AFTER we had passed security. By the time we made it back through security the people who had arrived after us seemed to have taken most of the rebooking slots on the next available flights.

They eventually booked us on another flight the next day. We had tickets for an event the next day and were looking to lose a few thousand dollars if we missed it so we were pretty upset and, after desperately calling customer service (who were great) they managed to get us the final seats on the last flight out for the night. We still had around an 11 hour wait at the airport with two kids which wasn't ideal. I noted that there were a lot of unhappy people milling around the airport as our flight wasn't the only one cancelled.

Upon arrival in Kelowna we couldn't actually disembark as there was a further issue with the ramp so were also kept on the plane for around an hour.

Third flight was from Kelowna to Vancouver. This one the delay was on the runway. itself. We were all boarded and then ended up sitting there for an hour as they were unable to take off due to a "passenger allocation" issue.

Staff overall were lovely and pricing was fair. Due to the lack of reliability I'd be hesitant to recommend though. They definitely seem to have more than their fair share of issues.

We had the absolute worst experience with WestJet. I would not recommend this airline to anyone. After lining up to board our flight to Toronto, we were informed of “mechanical issues” with the plane. We were then told that the plane would be delayed by an hour… and then another hour… and so on and so forth until we were finally informed of our flight cancellation some ~3 hours later. Staff lacked knowledge about the status of the plane and what was happening in general. We were told to wait yet another hour, then sent to immigration and baggage claim to re-enter Mexico and be transported to a hotel. We were forced to wait for luggage and transportation until nearly midnight, which was 6 hours after our originally scheduled departure. Upon boarding transportation to the hotel, we were not even informed about WHERE we were staying for the night. In fact, we did not find out the name of our hotel until we arrived and saw the sign out front. Furthermore, although we were originally booked as business class passengers, we were downgraded on our rescheduled flight to economy with no explanation. Listen, I understand that mechanical issues happen and are out of the airline's control. I also understand that staff can only do so much and can only share the information that they are given. I even understand having to downgrade passengers for rescheduled flights. However, what I do not understand is how such a large and well-established airline can so utterly and completely fail to communicate with their customers, have proper measures in place for situations like these, and leave customers for over 7 hours with no information. Disappointing in every way possible.

WORSTJET

YLW = YOUR LONG WALK, and long crowded WAIT

This airline and airport are seriously off the grid useless.
Westjet and YLW. Avoid at all cost - and make no mistake, it will cost you.
We now drive to Spokane and fly for half the price, save on free parking, and enjoy on time flights.

It is so bad, our company won't even let us fly from YLW or on WORSTET.

Shame on Samaddar (YLW) and WJ for allowing things to get so bad.

Westjet needs to understand how cancelling a flight can cause such a domino impact of problems for their customers. This lack of understanding seems to stretch across the Westjet culture. I've travelled quite a bit on numerous airlines and haven't come across the same callous disregard for the problems they can cause their customers. The problems around cancelling a flight seems inconsequential to them.

We planned our trip to Belize in Oct for Kjanuary experiencean. It included a Westjet flight from Penticton to Calgary, an overnight in Calgary, then a direct flight from Calgary to Belize at 8:30 AM the next day. We knew the day of the flight to Belize would be long because when we arrived in Belize we had to go thru customs and immigration, and then take an hour sea Bus to our vacation rental. We had planned to arrive late afternoon in Calgary and have have a nice restful evening knowing we had to be up at 5 to take a taxi and be at the airport 2 hours before our 8:30 flight.

Westjet, TWO hours before our flight out of Penticton, ancelled the flight. They had mechanical problems and would be in touch. After a few mechanical problem messages they finally cancelled the flight. They did rebook, but it was the next day AFTER our scheduled flight to Belize. It's in the afternoon when this happened, no flights from Penticton left now, and not many flights left from another airport. I first attempted to book another Westjet flight the same day from another airport through the on line chat. After a half hour or so, and after the online agent asked for numerous details I was told he/she couldn't book another flight and we would have to call an agent. Fine. Wasted precious time, but we called an agent and a flight was booked out of another airport that evening. We drove an hour and a half to the next airport arriving 3 hours early. The flight was delayed at least two times by an hour each time. The delays were administrative. It was extremely stressful wondering if we the flight would also be cancelled.

We had to reschedule rides to the airport, to our hotel who almost gave our room away because we weren't there as planned.

By the time we got on the flight and travelled to our hotel in Calgary it was 1 PM. So we had 4 hrs of sleep, and we're totally shell shocked and exhausted, for the next day, exactly what we tried to avoid.

So as former loyal WestJet customers, we always use Premium Economy as we like and want the separate Premium cabin. Having only Premium cabin guests using the bathroom is a big plus. Well, on our departing flight, there was no control of this. But the trip home was even worse. We got a "Cabin Transformation" plane. These planes were advertised as "New upgraded entertainment with free wifi and enhanced TV's". Well what we got was zero entertainment, no Premium cabin and not even any power source. It was brutal.
WestJet used to be the leader in customer service but now have fallen to just another airline that doesn't care.