WestJet Wants Hotel Quarantine Plan Over by May 1: "Hopeful" That Will Take Place

WestJet Wants Hotel Quarantine Plan Over by May 1: “Hopeful” That Will Take Place

March 24, 2021 Jim Byers

WestJet today said it has asked the Trudeau government to end its controversial quarantine hotel plan by May 1, and that they’re optimistic that will take place.

Speaking on a conference call with the media to talk about their restored flights to Quebec and Atlantic Canada, Andrew Gibbons, WestJet’s director of government relations, said WestJet would like to expand its international offerings this summer. But he said the removal of the quarantine hotel policy would be an important consideration in that decision.

“The current hotel policy is a deterrent to travel and it’s deliberately designed to dampen demand. We have requested that that policy transition as of May 1 to a more traditional regime around testing and reduced quarantine. So that is our request and expectation, quite frankly, of the government, that we successfully transition from that hotel policy on May 1 to allow greater international” travel.

The hotel quarantine plan began in mid-February and has proven very controversial. Travellers who arrive at any of the four international airports open for business in Canada must undergo a COVID-19 test and then check into a hotel while they await results. Travellers are required to arrange for three hotel nights and, in some cases, are paying upwards of $2,000.

Many travellers are getting their tests back after only a day, but it doesn’t appear as if many hotels are offering refunds for unused nights. Travellers also have complained of poor food and bad hotel service.

In response to federal government concerns about COVID-19 and new variants of the virus, airlines in January agreed to suspend their Caribbean and Mexico service until April 30, Gibbons noted.

“But that is a temporary policy. So our expectation and our hope is that that policy will transition on May 1. And what we mean by transition is we’re instructed by the success of the pilot project at Calgary International Airport, which reduced quarantine, and, according to Dr. Hinshaw (Deena Hinshaw, Alberta’s chief medical officer of health) was very effective in actually limiting and curbing the spread of variants. And, so we take the Prime Minister’s commitment to heart, to review the relationship between quarantine and testing, but we are looking for policies that can achieve the public health goals of the government but also allow the safe restart of travel and tourism.”

“The hotel policy that is in place is not designed to facilitate a safe restart, it is designed to dampen or eliminate travel, and given the rate of vaccination and where we are as a country, that’s why we use the term transition.”

In the last Air Canada quarterly call, now-retired Air Canada President and CEO Calin Rovinescu said that “while vaccines hold great promise, we believe effective and robust testing is far and away the most immediate and practical way to protect communities [and] restart the economy by allowing a return to some of our normal activities and restore travel.”

On a related question, John Weatherill, Executive Vice-President and Chief Commercial Officer for WestJet, said that the idea of vaccine passports are “absolutely” under discussion with the federal government.

“Absolutely there are discussions on a wide variety of issues, from the technology platform required to how it can work with our own systems and what is required to unlock safe travel and tourism,” he said. “So, we’re working with our international partners, we’re working with other airlines in Canada and those discussions continue with the federal government, as they do on a variety of issues.”

Asked if WestJet might require passengers to show proof of vaccination before flying, as some airlines have suggested, Weatherill said that is “currently” not the plan.