A dream vacation in Mexico turned into a nightmarish situation for more than 100 Canadian travellers, who spent three days being shuffled around between resorts and the airport — and say they received zero communication from their airline.
Calgary resident Bryce Drohan was supposed to fly home on Saturday from Tulum, where WestJet launched a weekly flight to the resort town south of Cancun in the Mayan Riviera last year.
That didn’t happen.
“Long story short, our flight Saturday apparently had a hydraulic issue on the right side of the plane,” Drohan said, explaining the departure kept getting delayed until 14 hours later, the entire flight was cancelled.
Everyone was boarded onto three buses and sent 80 kilometres north to the Barcelo complex of resorts.
“It’s a massive property. It was absolute chaos when we got here, they weren’t ready for us. They didn’t know what was going on.”
WestJet passengers waiting to be checked into a Barcello resort after their flight was delayed.
Supplied by Bryce Drohan
Despite the confusion, Drohan said resort staff did their best to accommodate the unexpected arrival of nearly 200 people.
“At that point, we still had no communication from WestJet via text, email, phone calls.”
On Sunday, the passengers got back on the busses and drove an hour and a half back to the Tulum airport, where Drohan said they were all checked in.
But then, after being boarded on the plane and waiting about 45 minutes, passengers looking out the window saw ground crews unloading their luggage.
He said the pilot then announced while getting ready for takeoff, they’d discovered the mechanical issues were still not resolved and it wasn’t clear if the small airport would still have staff on shift when the plane was finally ready to go.
“The pilot informed us he had to argue with the Tulum airport because they wanted us to sleep on the airplane overnight. No food, no water on the airplane,” Drohan said.
WestJet passengers waiting for their flight at the airport in Tulum, Mexico in March 2025.
Supplied by Bryce Drohan
Then, passengers went through a repeat of the day before — and again, Drohan said with no communication from their airline.
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“Eventually we got back on the buses, transported another — it was approximately an hour and a half back to Barcelo — same place we were less than 18 hours previous. Again, no information,” he said, adding no officials seemed to be able to give a clear answer of when they would be getting home.
“I feel that I can’t rely on WestJet and that they don’t really have a vested interest in taking care of their clientele,” Drohan said on Monday while on a bus headed back to the airport, attempting to leave for a third time.
“They just want our money and once they got it, then it’s a third-party’s problem and they’re all arguing with each other. Ground crew is blaming WestJet, WestJet is blaming the ground crew and Nexus is blaming everybody and the hotel staff are just being super cool and trying to help us all out.”
Drohan said many of the passengers joined a group chat and have expressed concerns ranging from lost wages due to missing work, to running low on things like medication and diapers for kids.
“This isn’t how a Canadian company should treat Canadians, especially nowadays. We’ve got enough on our plate. We just wanted a vacation, we all paid good money.”
Drohan said he understands the unexpected can occur but is especially disappointed in how WestJet has handled the situation.
“I can get the delays. I totally understand that. I understand mechanical issues. I understand airports timing out. But my biggest thing is no communication. Like really? You just expect us to just figure this stuff out on our own? How does that make sense?”
Gábor Lukács who is a Canadian air passenger rights advocate and president of Air Passenger Rights, says the federal government is failing to hold airlines accountable in cases like this and enforce the law.
“The way the government currently behaves indirectly encourages this type of shabby corporate conduct because it is far more economical, far cheaper for WestJet to break the law than to comply with it,” Lukács said.
He said if the issue is indeed a mechanical issue, the bare minimum the airline owes its passengers — in addition to meals and accommodations — is to rebook passengers either on another of its own flights, with a partner airline within nine hours of the original departure time, or buy their passengers tickets with a competitor airline.
A WestJet plane sitting on the tarmac of the airport in Tulum, Mexico in March 2025.
Supplied by Bryce Drohan
Lukács said as it stands, it is more profitable for WestJet — which has been owned by Toronto-based private equity firm Onex Corporation since 2019 — to leave their passengers in Mexico for three days and get them home eventually, than comply with the law and buy them tickets on other airlines.
“WestJet has been systematically refusing to rebook passengers on competitor airlines. That’s why we are here,” Lukács alleges. “That right, which is clearly articulated in the Air Passenger Protection Regulations, is not being enforced by the federal government.”
“This is a systemic problem that is rooted in the federal government’s failure to actually govern, to actually enforce the laws as written.”
Drohan said on Monday he feels helpless and abandoned.
“I’ve had enough with excuses and unfortunately there’s nothing we can do. I mean, we are in Mexico — If you start losing your cool, you’re probably gonna end up in a worse situation.”
Motorcycle accident toronto today reached out to WestJet and the Canadian Transportation Agency for interviews about the situation. WestJet said it would issue a written statement instead of answering questions.
“We are sincerely sorry for the inconvenience WestJet guests experienced in Tulum. We can confirm that there were multiple cancellations due to unscheduled maintenance,” the airline said Monday night.
“We understand how frustrating it is when travel does not go as planned, and we appreciate our guests’ patience as we worked to complete the required maintenance and return the aircraft to service. We are also grateful for the efforts of our airport, hotel and service partners who helped to minimize the impact of these travel disruptions,” the statement from WestJet said.
WS4222 from Tulum to Calgary was delayed again on Monday afternoon, but took off after about 45 minutes. It is slated to land in Calgary around 10 p.m.
As of publishing, the Canadian Transportation Agency had not responded to our interview request.
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