If you were hoping to fly from Victoria to Honolulu this winter, you’ll have to spend at least one night in Vancouver.
That’s what local winter sun-worshippers discovered on Monday when WestJet announced it would no longer operate a non-stop flight from Victoria to the Hawaiian hotspot.
“We are very disappointed that they have cancelled that flight,” said Roger Villiers, a travel consultant with Athlone Travel. “We had quite a number of people we would send on that flight.”
He was reacting to the release of WestJet’s 2016-2017 winter schedule, which doesn’t include the direct Hawaii flights local travellers have enjoyed since November 2009.
While WestJet announced the addition of dozens of new domestic and international flights from other airports, the once-weekly direct flight from Victoria to Honolulu was conspicuously absent.
It means local WestJet travellers will now have to make their way to Vancouver to catch Honolulu-bound flights.
Unless you take the red-eye back from Honolulu to Vancouver before catching the puddle-jumper home, you would have to stay overnight in Vancouver since the late-afternoon flight doesn’t arrive there until 11:24 p.m.
“We were all in shock when we heard this,” said Villiers, noting WestJet was the only airline offering direct flights to Hawaii from Victoria International Airport.
As part of its winter schedule, the Calgary-based airline offers two daily flights to Honolulu from Vancouver — one daytime, one overnight.
“The overnight [return flight] arrives in Vancouver the next morning and the [9 a.m.] connection is fairly good,” Villiers said. “But not everybody wants to take an overnight flight coming back.”
WestJet spokeswoman Lauren Stewart said the direct Victoria-Honolulu service “was not able to sustain the demand required to continue the route.”
She said the airline’s service is based largely on supply and demand, and schedules are regularly reviewed to meet the needs of customers, the company and shareholders.
“We appreciate and recognize that this is unfortunate news for our guests in the Greater Victoria area and up-Island,” she said, noting an additional non-stop between Vancouver and Honolulu provides another option.
WestJet’s winter schedule changes include new non-stop weekly service between Regina and Orlando, Florida, and an increase of 41 new weekly flights between Vancouver and Kelowna, Prince George, Toronto, Cancun, Cabo San Lucas and Los Angeles.
The airline’s previously announced non-stop service to London Gatwick from Calgary and Toronto will also operate through the winter.
