Sunwing issued an official statement yesterday which was sent to the Association of Canadian Travel Agencies (ACTA) after a meeting with the Travel Agency Leaders Advisory Group. The statement addressed the recent travel disruptions and impact on travel advisors, and outlined the company’s plan moving forward for the winter season.
The statement in full read:
At Sunwing, we have always remained steadfast in our purpose of making vacation dreams come true and travel advisors are integral to that process, helping our mutual customers choose from a wide variety of all inclusive resorts located in a number of popular vacation destinations. We know the past three years have been challenging and we have navigated through each obstacle together. Of course, this past month has been particularly difficult for travel advisors and we sincerely apologize for the disruptions.
With the support of advisors, we planned our highest travel schedule since pre-pandemic for the holiday season. Unfortunately, we experienced travel disruptions brought on by a convergence of factors, including significant weather events across Canada in the lead-up to Christmas, which limited our ability to reposition aircraft and crew to other airports, resulting in flight delays for some customers and cancellations on specific routes.
While many customers were impacted over the peak holiday season, most of our customers enjoyed their holidays with minimal disruption. News stories have exaggerated the travel disruptions and overstated the extent of route cancellations. We would like to set the record straight, respond to the travel community’s concerns and address our plan for the duration of winter, all in an effort to regain the trust of our valued travel advisors and mutual customers.
Entering the new year, we had 317 weekly flights scheduled for February and March, which was already below our originally planned level due to resource constraints. Since January 1, 2023, we have proactively reduced capacity further in order to safeguard the integrity of our operations and will now operate 296 weekly round-trip flights.
Overall reductions made since January 1st amount to 7% of capacity, and the majority of cancellations were on seasonal routes from cities where Sunwing Airlines does not have crew bases and has to position crews from other regions. We regret the impact to passengers on affected routes, and have offered rebooking options from other gateways wherever possible. Those customers who would prefer not to travel are being fully refunded for cancelled bookings.
We have received questions from advisors around commissions for cancelled bookings. In line with normal procedures and industry standards, we will not be protecting commissions for cancelled bookings and regret the inconvenience this has caused. However, we are pleased that many customers have chosen to rebook travel from alternate gateways through their advisors, and bookings remain strong for the months ahead.
As mentioned by Andrew Dawson, President of Tour Operations for Sunwing, during the recent Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, we are fully committed to finding ways to make advisors whole again. This includes increasing commission to 10% on Sunwing vacation packages booked between January 19, 2023 and February 20, 2023, for departure up to May 31, 2023. This temporary increase amounts to tens of thousands of dollars in additional commission per week. We are also exploring other ways to support advisors in the months ahead, such as through bonus STAR point promotions for the upcoming summer, and will communicate additional trade programs and incentives as they are confirmed.
Once again, we apologize to travel advisors for the inconvenience and disruption over the holiday season. We recognize there is more work to be done in rebuilding your faith in us and will continue to provide updates on this important work. We are dedicated to regaining your trust in the weeks and months ahead.
Sincerely,
Sunwing Vacations
ACTA’s response
ACTA’s response was almost immediate. It read in full:
ACTA is incredibly disappointed in Sunwing’s decision not to protect commission on cancelled programs in Saskatchewan, Atlantic Canada, Northern Ontario, and other areas across Canada. Sunwing advised ACTA today in a written statement in response to repeated calls for a statement on its intentions.
“ACTA continues to call on Sunwing to do the right thing and protect commission and urges for immediate improvements to its agent communications to ensure clear, consistent, and timely sharing of information so that travel agents are aware of changes before, or not later than, their clients,” said Wendy Paradis, ACTA president.
She added: “Travel agents are a crucial support to suppliers and have invested significant resources in planning and rescheduling and cancelling travel due to Sunwing’s decision and are now being told they will not be compensated for their work.”
Further, ACTA members have consistently expressed their concern that Sunwing’s communication practices have considerably impacted customer relationships and the ability for travel agents to manage schedule changes and cancellations for their mutual customers. In many cases, customers were advised before travel agents of cancellations.