As thousands of Taylor Swift fans flock to Vancouver for the final three-night stand of the singer’s Eras Tour, some are having an easier time getting there than others.
Several fans from Prince George were forced to make other travel plans when their flights to Vancouver were cancelled at the last minute.
“Almost everyone on the flight was a Swiftie coming down for the Eras Tour. We were all sitting in the lobby kind of wondering what to do,” said Prince George Swiftie Aliviah Howell.
“Initially, I was just frustrated. I know that the airlines don’t intend to do this. We were just super frustrated.”
Howell was originally set to fly out of Prince George with WestJet on Thursday night, but the flight kept getting delayed and was eventually cancelled due to apparent safety issues with the aircraft.
“We had asked if they were going to be sending up another flight the next day, because everything was booked, and they said no, there would not be another flight to accommodate us,” said Howell.
“I sat at the airport from 5:30 in the evening until one in the morning.”
With few options left, Howell rented an SUV with four strangers she met at the airport to make the nearly 800-kilometre journey.
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She says they drove through the night in a convoy with other fans from the cancelled flight.
“The other people that I travelled with went to last night’s show, so we were exchanging text messages, and they were sending pictures from the concert,” she said. “I am super excited to make my way down to the concert this evening, for sure.”
Two days later, more Prince George fans were left scrambling due to another cancelled WestJet flight.
Caden Fanshaw and Jael Reimer were supposed to fly out at 6 a.m. on Saturday morning but received noticed just hours before that their flight would not be taking off.
“We’ve been seeing all over the news people coming from all over the world, and they can make it from, like, Australia, and we can’t even make it from northern B.C.,” said Reimer.
The pair say WestJet did not provide a reason for the cancellation and rebooked them on a flight scheduled to land on Sunday, right before the concert.
“It would have just kind of ruined our whole trip,” said Reimer.”We had planned today to go and line up for merch, just like everyone else. That’s such a big part of the Eras tour experience…
“That kind of threw our plans today out the window, and then tomorrow we would have been in such a rush, and who knows if we would have even made it.”
In a statement to Global News, WestJet said Saturday’s flight was cancelled due to unscheduled maintenance.
“We sincerely apologize for the disruption this caused for all guests impacted,” said WestJet spokesperson Madison Kruger.
Fanshaw and Reimer were able to rebook with a different airline to arrive a day before the show but a family member on the same flight had to pay $800 out of pocket.
“I’ll just say, it’s really disappointing that they can’t get more organized, especially on probably one of the biggest weekends of the entire year for B.C., and even Canada,” said Reimer.
“So, so many people are going to be so disappointed.”
Fanshaw echoed the feeling. “I can’t help but think of like the 70 other people that are stranded right now, scrambling on what to do.”
“We’ve heard (of) flights out of Kelowna getting cancelled today. There’s another flight out of Prince George last night that got canceled. So, for an airline that’s marketing itself as, like, the ‘Eras Tour’ airline, they sure blew it this weekend.”
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