Last year in November I almost missed a flight from Hamilton, Ontario to Moncton, New Brunswick. I didn’t miss it because 
West-Jet waited for me. Here’s the letter I sent them today:
I’m writing to thank you for your outstanding, incomparable service.
On Sunday, November 27, 2005 (sorry for the delay in writing this), I had a 1:10pm flight from Hamilton to Moncton. I left London at 9am, 90 minutes earlier than usual since a snow storm was occurring. During the drive I was stuck in traffic on the 401 and 403 for two hours due to accidents. I phoned my travel agent as I waited, asking them if the flight was delayed due to the weather; they said No. I asked them what the deadline was for the check-in time, and they said 30 minutes before the flight – no exceptions. So, I decided to TRY and make my flight, hoping that flight would be delayed.
I arrived 15 minutes before the flight was supposed to leave. I threw my keys to the car rental clerk saying “Fax me the bill!”, then rushed to the West-Jet counter asking, “Am I too late?” The attendant smiled and said, “Jody? We’re waiting for you”, giving me my ticket, and off I went, amazed. Wow. Five minutes later I was on the plane thinking, “I gotta write West-Jet about this.”
I used to fly with your major competitor, but they were dependably undependable: delayed flights, inconvenient flight times, and expensive. No longer. I fly exclusive West-Jet now, with this incident just one example of the great service I receive.
Why am I only posting this now? I’m starting to finish the 50 or so draft posts I have on the go.
i’ve heard so many great things about them, it can’t all be true!
i want to work for/own them
Didn’t WestJet recently pay Air Canada $10.5 million for illegally obtaining records of Air Canada’s flight plans? Very sleezy, underhanded stuff I hear. But I like them too.
West-Jet replied to my email:
Why do West Jet employees care so much? :-)
Several years ago, I was flying with another airline. I won’t say which, but they had the words “air” and “canada” in their name. I sat in a Dash-8 on the runway at Fredericton for 45 minutes waiting for another flight to arrive (late) so that connecting passengers could board. When I got to Halifax, I was 15 minutes late for MY flight, and it was gone. “I’m sorry sir, there’s nothing we can do. I’ll put you on stand-by for a flight 6 hours from now. Here’s 9 bucks for lunch.”
Now THAT’S customer service.
It’s amazing what some airlines will do.
I remember once travelling from NY to Lansing via Detroit (Continental Airlines).
Was booked on an 8:00 PM puddle jumper from Detroit to Lansing.
Announced that the plane was overbooked and started offering free tickets.
Me and three others jumped at the chance.
They held that plane for 40 minutes waiting on a late connection from another flight.
So at 8:40 that night I watched 4 people running from another terminal get on the plane that I and the 3 others gave our seats up for.
The strange part of this story????
Me and those 3 other people left 20 minutes later on the 9:00 PM flight which was only half full???