Airlines' strategy lures travellers to flights that may never take off

Despite minuscule travel demand, Canadian airlines continue to schedule tens of thousands of monthly flights, only to cancel the vast majority of them several weeks before departure in a strategy experts call “bait and switch.”

The approach, adopted by carriers following the collapse of the global travel industry due to COVID-19, leaves passengers stuck with vouchers they may never use or flights that take off days later than planned.

Figures from aviation data firm Cirium show that Air Canada cut more than 27,000 flights, or 70 per cent, from its November schedule between Sept. 25 and Oct. 9.

WestJet, which recently began to offer refunds for cancelled flights in contrast to its competitors, slashed its November schedule by about 12,400 flights, or 68 per cent, in one week last month.

John Gradek, a lecturer at McGill

University and head of its Global Aviation Leadership program, said the strategy is misleading and cynical, and marks a response to customers' last-minute buying habits amid the shifting travel restrictions of the pandemic.

“It's called bait and switch,” said Gradek.

The strategy is a response to a shift in customer behaviour, an attempt to woo wary travellers with ample flight options before drastically undersold seats prompt a scheduling cull. “The industry cross their fingers and hope people buy, that they all of a sudden get this insane urge to fly,” Gradek said, calling the practice “deceptive.”

“Cynical is probably too light of a word,” he said. “It borders on the edge of misleading advertising, that you're promoting and offering for sale stuff that you know there's a high probability will not be what you're actually offering to the customer.”

Carriers deny there is anything untoward about recent schedule gutting. “Airline schedules have always been subject to change,” Air Canada spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick said in an email, noting the company has had to cut capacity by more than 90 per cent since March.

“Overall, our schedule continues to operate as planned, and for any customers affected by changes we do provide advance notice and offer options.”