For those stranded on a vacation, the booked airlines should be the savior to their struggles. If they shrug off the concerns and leave stranded individuals to figure things out, it’s a frightening situation.
Something similar happened when a Sunwing representative was caught on video telling a man, Ritesh Bhatia, and his family who were stranded in Mexico to stop fighting the airline’s decisions or he could make people stay there “forever.” It’s not the most comforting response to hear with a five-month-old baby on vacation.
Other passengers spotted the encounter as they captured it on their phones. It was clearly deemed as inappropriate and a spokesperson for the airline said it “wasn’t representative of the company’s values as it struggled to bring hundreds of stranded passengers back to Canada during a wave of cancellations.”
“The destination representative’s comments in the video were inappropriate. An internal review has been conducted and the representative has been removed from duties and will face disciplinary actions. We sincerely apologize to our customers for their experience and would like to measure them that the representative’s comments are not aligned with our company’s values,” a statement said.
It’s the denial of airline responsibility by the representative that set people off in a rage. It’s an insulting comment after the travel nightmares of being stranded. Some passengers were forced to wait for hours in hotel lobbies and there was no return flight in sight so people lost the opportunity to be near loved ones during the holidays.
Things got more hectic when a baggage belt malfunction lost thousands of bags at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport during a nationwide storm.
In the video, Bhatia’s son, Rumi, was seen crying in his arms as he tries to confront the airline representative. Bhatia didn’t feel it was fair that they were low on the priority when it came to a return flight since they showed up early to the airport for a flight back.
Cancun could be a lovely place but forever is a long time to be stuck in a foreign country with a young toddler.