WESTJET Passenger Reviews and Customer Trip Reports

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WESTJET customer review :  6 February 2010 by Michael Parkes    (Canada)

Hamilton - Halifax Return. Flight departed on time and arrived early on each leg of the journey. Both ways were on-board a Boeing 737-600. Comfortable leather seats with good legroom, personal TV's. I paid $59 each ways booking 3 weeks in advance. Only down side was the lack of width in the seats, but I guess you can't have it all on a low-cost carrier. Crew wonderful!

WESTJET customer review :  20 January 2010 by F Girling    (Canada)

Going to the Olympics and I had a credit with WestJet (they won't refund money just credit towards another flight). I called to book in November and sat on the phone for 90 minutes without any help at all. The next day same thing - the next day a front end message says they are switching reservation systems and I should book through Travelocity. A few weeks later I got around to calling Travelocity and after 35 minutes waiting for them I am told they can't handle WestJet credits only new bookings - and WestJet's booking site won't handle credits either. In December I once again sat on the phone for 2 hours because of a sale I desperately wanted to get in on. As it was I booked half my trip through Air Canada who had an even better sale on, but I didn't hold any credits with them. After 2 months and probably 8 combined hours of sitting in wait on the phone, I did receive a kind young man who made my reservation for me. This was the worst booking experience I have ever had in all my travel experiences. On average I like WestJet but the new system was poorly planned and made me furious. They were holding my money and forcing me to wait to use it.

WESTJET customer review :  10 January 2010 by C Mellin    (Canada)

Vancouver to Toronto. Husband is physically disabled and unable to walk long distances. They get us through check-in, through security, to the gate, on the plane, pick us up when we arrive and take us to the luggage area. On our last Air Canada flight, the check-in person pointed around the corner and told me to go and arrange a wheel chair - on my own. It was to far to walk, so I had to leave my husband behind. We always take our own sandwiches but the pop/coffee/tea/water is free. All conventional ear-phones work bring your own if $3 is too expensive. I bought us some about 6 flights back and they still work fine. Planes are clean and the crew are wonderful. The only complaint I have and am starting to hear it from fellow travellers, is that they are no longer as affordable as when they first arrived on the scene. Their fares are comparable to AC and they need to address this. They need to make sure that they are still offering value for the money they are charging. Keep it affordable and they will come!!

WESTJET customer review :  1 January 2010 by Kevin McDougald    (Canada)

Winnipeg-Edmonton return. New online check-in process needs further debugging, as printer settings had to be adjusted to produce legible and properly paginated boarding passes. This happened while checking in both at home and from a hotel's business centre. Airport and cabin staff were consistently pleasant, but they are much more formal now than they were a couple of years ago.

WESTJET customer review :  19 December 2009 by G McFarlane    (Canada)

I have always been most impressed with the way in which Westjet treats their customers before and during flights. However, Westjet is slipping and becoming, in my opinion, just another airline. I booked 4 return flights from Vancouver - Maui at a cost of $1700 each, comparable to Air Canada's fare or first class on Hawaiian or Alaska. The problems arose about a month before the flights. Westjet has had horrendous problems with their new reservations system (Sabre). In the past Westjet customers would receive a reply to their online feedback tool in about 2 hours. I sent two feedback e-mails and never heard back from the customer service department. I also tried unsuccessfully to contact their 'super sales centre' but was on hold for too long on each occasion and hung up. I tried to check-in online 5 times but couldn't complete the check in and get the boarding cards. At YVR, the frontline staff were wonderful but their frustration with the Sabre problems is creating morale problems. The incoming flight was delayed almost 2 hours but the Westjet website was never updated and the flight took off over an hour late. On the 6 hour flight to Maui, they ran out of buy onboard food. For a flight with 166 passengers, leaving at 9.40 am you'd think that they'd have enough food onboard to provide passengers with lunches.

WESTJET customer review :  21 November 2009 by Daniel Glesby    (Canada)

YWG-PHX. Got to the airport about 2 hours early, only took about 25 minutes from check in to the gate. Had to much time to kill during the wait. 45 minutes is plenty early. On the plane I got 6A. This aisle is supposed to have a tad more legroom then the others, didn't notice much difference. PHX-YWG. I can understand why they ask you to get their 2 hours in advance. Their computers were down for about 30 minutes. Once we checked in it was a breeze to the gate. Flight left ontime and they got us in 10 minutes early. Everything on the flight was fine. To boot I got a round trip fare for $250 taxes included. That bumps them up to a 9 in my books.

WESTJET customer review :  1 October 2009 by James Steward    (Canada)

Toronto – Vancouver YVR. Line-ups at check-in in Toronto were long, however, service by check- in staff was prompt. They provide up to two free checked bags per passenger. The aircraft was new and clean. Seats offer comfort and ample leg room. Inflight entertainment with complimentary live TV programming along with pay-per-view. Cabin crew friendly and served a complimentary drink and snack.

WESTJET customer review :  18 August 2009 by John Ashworth    (UK)

Toronto to Halifax return. Family (2 adults and 2 children) all well looked after. Liked the folksy charm and amusing announcements and other touches. Leather seats as comfy as you could expect and seat back TV excellent with two children well entertained. On time both ways and nice to have Captain wave you goodbye at the end.

WESTJET customer review : 21 May 2009 : by Brian Macklin

Customer Rating : 3/5

WestJet has always been our favourite airline, the staff are funny, helpful and seemingly light hearted, a pleasure to deal with. Returning from a long journey from England however, we noticed firstly that the lightheartedness was absent, everyone gets tired and it was an evening flight, so understandable. What did really disappoint us though, was that when our flight from Gatwick arrived in Vancouver very early, we enquired if there were any empty seats on an earlier flight to Kelowna for us than those booked for 6-35 p.m. It was around midday. We were told that we could only be put on standby (understandable) but that it would cost us $42 each extra. Now this we don't understand. If you have empty seats on a flight and we have already paid for our seats on the next flight why would it cost us extra to fill your empty seats on an earlier flight? This would leave you two seats that somebody might be glad of at the last minute on the later flight we were booked on (which was completely full). The result of this was that we waited a total of seven hours (our London flight had arrived at 10:30'ish). Firstly there was a problem with the conveyor bringing the luggage from the plane so we waited almost two hours to collect our luggage, which we know of course is not anything to do with your airline, then we could not catch an earlier flight home without paying an extra $84 to go on standby, which could have left us back where we started anyway. We just don't get it. Perhaps you can explain it to us, so very disappointing and we were so exhausted. We are both over 65, not old by any means, but still not as much stamina as we once had, a little more flexibility would have gone a long way.

WESTJET customer review : 21 May 2009 : by S Bibbs

Customer Rating : 5/5

I have been flying with Westjet between YVR and YEG frequently (at least 5-6 times per year) since 2005 when my daughter settled in Edmonton for University and then decided to stay for work after graduation. Every flight was on-time and uneventful - lucky for me since I have an aversion to flying! The flight attendants are fantastic - helpful, cheerful and equipped with a sense of humour. The leather seats are comfortable. I have only positive impressions of my Westjet experiences - absolutely no negatives.

WESTJET customer review : 15 May 2009 : by Heather Thomson

Customer Rating : 5/5

St. John's-Toronto. Great people great fun and a friendly helpful service. I left my baggage in the overhead compartment and drove home (3 hours away). Called to ask if they had found it. They got back to me within 3 hours and said they had it and shipped it FedEx to my door. Thanks WestJet! I expected it to be stolen and they took care of it even without any name or contact info on the baggage.

WESTJET customer review : 17 March 2009 : by L Pereira

Customer Rating : 5/5

Toronto/Punta Cana, aircraft clean, good legroom, live TV over North America then no more IFE, very basic food offerings (for purchase). The feel of the airline, low-cost and no more. Crew OK but nothing special,

WESTJET customer review : 17 March 2009 : by J Pereira

Customer Rating : 3/5

Toronto/Punta Cana. Flight on time, aircraft clean and good legroom. Food for purchase was very basic. IFE, live TV limited channels, 2 hours into the flight no more TV means no more entertainment (over the ocean), no music channels. Find Westjet to be what it is -lowcost. The experience lacked polish and felt cheap, a bit like a no frills supermarket.

WESTJET customer review : 7 February 2009 : by T Pidherney

Customer Rating : 2/5

As for an airline to travel with, they are fantastic! But online booking is a farce! I was checking flights to book my daughter on my existing flight and found only ONE seat left. I panicked and purchased it right away. The next day I went on to see if it was indeed sold out and found the same flight on sale for approx. 150.00 less with 9 seats left. Not impressed! That's quite a little scam they have going there for themselves. They lose points from me for being deceptive!

WESTJET customer review : 25 January 2009 : by W Leung

Customer Rating : 4/5

Flew out Christmas day from YVR to LAS and only delayed about 1 hour going there. This was the week of the big snow fall that caused hundreds of flights cancelled or delayed across the country. Westjet did an admirable job of getting us to our destination within a decent time frame and with friendly service. Check-in was a breeze. The cabin crew cracked jokes to lighten the mood and efficiently served complimentary beverages and snacks about 1 hour before we landed. Baggage came out quickly and all in tact - phew. Only minor complaint was the one hour delay coming back and was probably attributed to a delay in their scheduling. The planes are newer and the individual monitors behind the seats are a nice touch. Points deducted for charging for $3 headsets and $7 for blanket rental. Thank goodness I brought a jacket and own headset.

WESTJET customer review : 19 January 2009 : by J Fournier

Customer Rating : 4/5

Flight from Toronto to Vancouver, very helpful staff and very good trip, good seat and clean aircraft.

WESTJET customer review : 31 December 2008 : by B Taylor

Customer Rating : 1/5

On Dec 21st we were to fly from Vancouver to Kona Hawaii. After narrowly avoiding a cancelled flight from Kelowna to Vancouver it seemed like all would work out getting out of Vancouver at some point. Of course our flight was delayed by 2 hours before boarding commenced. This is where things got really interesting. We sat on the plane in Vancouver for 3.5 hours with nothing but a small cup of water offered to help out. We were then told by the pilot that we are next in line for de-icing and the runway has been cleared. We pull out to be de-iced, but the pilot comes back on and says that plans have changed and the flight will not be leaving. We get off the plane with no direction of where to receive our luggage, and 1 staff member working. They misinformed everyone saying that they were not covering the cost of hotels. We managed to get a hotel and kept positive that we would eventually get to Hawaii. That did not happen our flight was never rebooked, and we are out $4000 for our condo.

WESTJET customer review : 31 December 2008 : by Kathie Ogilvie

Customer Rating : 4/5

We took a Christmas trip to Ottawa from Winnipeg with my 88 yr. old mother in law and the staff could not have been more helpful. Anytime we asked for a wheelchair it was promptly supplied and during all the flight delays and cancelled flights this year we were only half an hour late leaving Winnipeg.

WESTJET customer review : 24 December 2008 : by J McCauley

Customer Rating : 5/5

I flew from Ottawa to Calgary and had no problems. Even better: I could take my 2 cats with me in the pet cargo. Air Canada wanted to charge me $150 one-way. Westjet charged me $45. My cats were extremely well cared for, I was met at checkout with someone who gave me their name and took responsibility for them, and again when I landed. I was moving across the country and Westjet made it possible for me to not have to give up my two furry friends. Not only that, they helped me out at a time when I was very stressed personally (the move, the cats and the situation). The customer service was non-invasive (I hate being disturbed every 5 minutes for stuff, as is done on other flights), and the entire crew was friendly. I've flown with them 4 times since and will use them again. Air Canada I find to be overpriced, the staff stuffy and impersonal and their flights are rarely on time.