Stranded by a storm

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This article was published 25/12/2016 (3236 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Jamaican student Trevor Williamson’s first flight to Canada was straight into the fury of a Colorado low.

On the evening of Christmas Day, the 31-year-old was hunkering down for his second night at Winnipeg’s Richardson International Airport. He was among a handful of passengers stranded by the storm barelling into Winnipeg.

“So, I’m here in Winnipeg, that’s the way it goes,” Williamson said, making jokes about his bad luck.

On Christmas Eve, he and his sister were at home in Jamaica. They booked separate flights back to her home in Kelowna, B.C. She went through Toronto and her flight to Kelowna flew above the storm. It was to land on schedule in Kelowna Christmas night.

Williamson, who said he’s about to start school in Kelowna, chose a route through Winnipeg. His connecting flight in Winnipeg was cancelled after he landed here Christmas Eve. The storm turned that layover into an unexpected two-day stay.

“It’s a tough day, but I’m warm… I was stranded (Sunday) night, and now they’re letting me know it’s going to be another night,” the WestJet passenger said as the final flights came in and left the airport Christmas night.

More than a dozen departures and more than 20 arrivals were cancelled in anticipation of the storm that bore down on the city as darkness fell.

An updated forecast by Environment Canada Sunday evening hadn’t changed much from warnings posted earlier in the day.

“Hazardous winter conditions are expected. A major storm system will significantly disrupt holiday plans for all of southern Manitoba and southeastern Saskatchewan. A Colorado low moving northeastward continues to develop and intensify,” Environment Canada’s website warned.

Ice pellets were to be followed by heavy snow — as much as 30 centimetres overnight with accumulations of up to 50 centimetres along the U.S. border. Strong northerly winds gusting up to 60 to 70 km/h throughout the night and into today were forecast.

Even without cargo flights because of the holiday, the airport had to stay open. Crews were to keep runways cleared for emergency flights, said Tyler MacAfee, the director of corporate communications for the Winnipeg Airports Authority.

That decision worked out for the convenience of delayed airline passengers and Greyhound bus passengers, who were expected to be stranded in the city when the blizzard closed in on highways, MacAfee said.

Restaurants and coffee shops at the terminal agreed to stay open overnight at the request of the airport authority.

“There are always those people who fall through the cracks and we’ve let our suppliers know about them. Stella’s (Restaurant) and Tim Hortons know there are people there for the night,” MacAfee said.

MacAfee said decisions by airlines to cancel flights before the storm meant hundreds of passengers who might have been stranded were not.

There were a couple of exceptions with airlines that expected to land during the storm, including two Sunwing excursions from Mexico that were to arrive before 9 p.m.

Excursion charters tend to fly aircraft that are large enough to land even when airports are bracing for bad weather, MacAfee said.

Williamson had some company. Frank Choe drove three hours on Highway 6 from his family’s Interlake home in St. Martin Junction only to find out his Air Canada flight to Calgary had been scratched.

“They said it was the weather, and they said I’m responsible to call ahead to the airport,” he shrugged. He figured his flight was cancelled while he was still on the road. “I came in from up north,” he said.

Elliot Viles said WestJet made the decision to cancel its shuttle service from Winnipeg to Brandon so at least he had a hotel room for the night.

He’d flown in from Honolulu. “My family’s from Australia, so we met halfway for Christmas. I just got into Winnipeg and there’s no shuttle going to Brandon so the airline is putting me up in a hotel,” he said.

MacAfee suggested airline passengers keep an eye on the airport website — waa.ca — or check in with individual airlines to get the latest information on any flights. The WAA website is updated in almost real-time, he added. The flights cancelled Christmas Day had to be rescheduled by the airlines.

“We plan for every kind of scenario, so winter storms are not something unexpected in Winnipeg,” he says. “The timing of this is probably less than ideal… but we’ve got full crews on standby ready to go, we’re just kind of monitoring the situation with the weather right now and seeing where we’re at,” he said.

alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca