Sunwing Airlines
This was typed on my laptop en route to Vancouver. The woman beside me looked over my shoulder and thought I was writing a complaint letter to Sunwing. She wished me good luck with that. I'm glad she wasn't spying on something a bit more personal ;-)
There's something to be said for the "discount" concept. I decided to try out Sunwing because they had pretty cheap faires between Vancouver and Toronto, although the margin of difference with Westjet was only in the $50-100 zone. Before I even printed out my ticket, a few things stood out at me:
- Baggage: My roommate Joe discovered this when he flew Sunwing last month. Whereas Westjet and Air Canada offer something like a 30 kg allowance each for two bags, Sunwing permits a maximum of 20 kg *total* among two bags. The overage fee is $10 per kilo. This means that any passenger who didn't read the fine print and brought two 20-kg bags will be out $200 each way and completely wipe out any cost difference. So on the bright side I forced yself to pack light, but a lot of people on these flights feel a little cheated.
- "Sales": When I purchased my ticket originally, it was a "special" fare sale. The eastbound ticket was something around $250 and the westbound $100, plus the usual taxes. I added a $50 package that would allow me to change my flight for free; later when I used that option I noticed how the fares had changed after the sale. The eastbound and westbound flights were about $160 each - making the total only slightly less than when a "sale" was going on. The deception left a bad taste in my mouth.
- Check-in: The major airlines have all gotten on board with this Web Check-in idea where you print your boarding pass in advance and then you're clear to arrive at the airport whenever you want to as long as you hit the gate in time. Charters and little lines like Sunwing close the check-in gates an hour before departure and have no such Web check-in. The whole process is stripped of the convenience I'm otherwise used to.
Okay, so let's summarize the experience. On Monday night the 24th I took an overnight flight from Vancouver to Toronto. I expected, like the Westjet redeyes I've flown before, that we'd get to sit down in the cabin, and perhaps take a good nap undisturbed with the lights out. Something is obviously a bit wire-crossed about Sunwing's understanding of what customers want or need, because the lights came on full blast and at 11:30 Pacific / 2:30 Eastern they were rolling food cards down the aisles. Between that, the cramped seating, and the noise from my neighbour's headphones as he watched the two in-flight movies, I didn't get a wink of attempted sleep and it took me a full day to reset my body's clock. Not such a good start.
Fortunately the westbound flight was easier to "get right": on an 8 PM ET -> 10:15 PM PT flight, it actually does make sense to serve us dinner. After my last Toronto trip I m ade the wise decision to purchase a secondary modular-bay battery for my laptop; this has allowed me to provide my own onboard entertainment (I watched Evan Almighty... only mildly funny but I get what I pay for!) and still have some juice left to blog my guts out.
Would I fly Sunwing again? Maybe, if their eastbound flights weren't all redeyes. But I'd really like my next time in a plane to be Westjet or some other airline that is similarly considerate.
There's something to be said for the "discount" concept. I decided to try out Sunwing because they had pretty cheap faires between Vancouver and Toronto, although the margin of difference with Westjet was only in the $50-100 zone. Before I even printed out my ticket, a few things stood out at me:
- Baggage: My roommate Joe discovered this when he flew Sunwing last month. Whereas Westjet and Air Canada offer something like a 30 kg allowance each for two bags, Sunwing permits a maximum of 20 kg *total* among two bags. The overage fee is $10 per kilo. This means that any passenger who didn't read the fine print and brought two 20-kg bags will be out $200 each way and completely wipe out any cost difference. So on the bright side I forced yself to pack light, but a lot of people on these flights feel a little cheated.
- "Sales": When I purchased my ticket originally, it was a "special" fare sale. The eastbound ticket was something around $250 and the westbound $100, plus the usual taxes. I added a $50 package that would allow me to change my flight for free; later when I used that option I noticed how the fares had changed after the sale. The eastbound and westbound flights were about $160 each - making the total only slightly less than when a "sale" was going on. The deception left a bad taste in my mouth.
- Check-in: The major airlines have all gotten on board with this Web Check-in idea where you print your boarding pass in advance and then you're clear to arrive at the airport whenever you want to as long as you hit the gate in time. Charters and little lines like Sunwing close the check-in gates an hour before departure and have no such Web check-in. The whole process is stripped of the convenience I'm otherwise used to.
Okay, so let's summarize the experience. On Monday night the 24th I took an overnight flight from Vancouver to Toronto. I expected, like the Westjet redeyes I've flown before, that we'd get to sit down in the cabin, and perhaps take a good nap undisturbed with the lights out. Something is obviously a bit wire-crossed about Sunwing's understanding of what customers want or need, because the lights came on full blast and at 11:30 Pacific / 2:30 Eastern they were rolling food cards down the aisles. Between that, the cramped seating, and the noise from my neighbour's headphones as he watched the two in-flight movies, I didn't get a wink of attempted sleep and it took me a full day to reset my body's clock. Not such a good start.
Fortunately the westbound flight was easier to "get right": on an 8 PM ET -> 10:15 PM PT flight, it actually does make sense to serve us dinner. After my last Toronto trip I m ade the wise decision to purchase a secondary modular-bay battery for my laptop; this has allowed me to provide my own onboard entertainment (I watched Evan Almighty... only mildly funny but I get what I pay for!) and still have some juice left to blog my guts out.
Would I fly Sunwing again? Maybe, if their eastbound flights weren't all redeyes. But I'd really like my next time in a plane to be Westjet or some other airline that is similarly considerate.