Tons of of Sunwing Airways passengers are banding collectively and mulling a class-action lawsuit after being caught up in a wave of cancellations and lawsuits that left many stranded in tropical locations, unable to return to Canada.

A social media group devoted to organizing the passengers has swollen to 750 members, and organizer Sohail Shahidnia says they’re looking for a lawyer to take the case.

“We simply needed to get residence. This isn’t proper,” Shahidnia mentioned in an interview. “We wish to make them accountable.”

Shahidnia was among the many crowd on the Cancun airport whose return flights had been repeatedly cancelled over Christmas. In recorded video of the airport, tons of may be heard chanting, “take us residence!” In one other place within the crowd, a video exhibits a Sunwing consultant threatening to strand a person and his five-month-old baby in Mexico “without end” — one thing for which the airline has since apologized.

Shahidnia and his household booked one other flight out and made it residence. Many didn’t, caught in a whirlwind of cancellations, a continent-wide storm, in addition to a digital communications breakdown that led to many empty seats on some rescue flights.

To high it off, a baggage belt breakdown at Toronto’s Terminal 3 meant 1000’s of baggage piled up within the terminal. Many luggage made it to a warehouse close to the airport for passengers to select up, although some travellers have instructed CTV Information Toronto they’re nonetheless ready weeks after their flight.

Sunwing has apologized and mentioned its 43 rescue flights have now introduced residence anybody who was missed within the robust journey season.

Travellers wait in line at a Sunwing Airways check-in desk at Trudeau Airport in Montreal, Wednesday, April 20, 2022. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes

However the airline’s resolution to cancel flights from Saskatchewan till mid-February is having ongoing repercussions, together with these for bride-to-be Ash Perry, who has been instructed two visitors received’t be capable to fly with Sunwing.

“The one choices obtainable are to both pay $1,400 plus to search out their strategy to Ottawa, Montreal, and Toronto or get a full refund and never be capable to attend my wedding ceremony,” she mentioned in an interview. “I’m so careworn I don’t know what to do.”

The airline has began providing vouchers, passengers instructed CTV Information, nonetheless Gabor Lukacs of Air Passenger Rights mentioned passengers could also be entitled to way more.

“The purpose is Sunwing can’t impose these decisions on passengers. Sunwing has one selection: purchase tickets on different airways,” he mentioned, referring to federal compensation guidelines.

He mentioned the Canadian Transportation Company process is cumbersome for passengers and doesn’t require airways to show they don’t owe passengers for cancelled flights.

“The even bigger challenge is the federal authorities’s failure to implement passenger rights, and their failure to enact rules which are easy — that’s what’s culminated within the present scenario,” he mentioned.

The Liberal MP, who’s chair of Canada’s Transport Committee, has known as for Sunwing and By way of Rail — who additionally skilled journey delays because of the storm–to testify about delays. Opposition MPs have countered with a requirement in a letter that the federal minister of transport additionally testify.

“It’s not sufficient for the Liberal Minister to tweet that the scenario was unacceptable,” the NDP’s Taylor Bacharach mentioned. “He’s the minister charged with overseeing Canada’s transportation system and has particular powers underneath laws. If anybody can do one thing to guard passengers, it’s him.”