WestJet replaces simple return passenger flight with brutal 72-hour itinerary: ‘I can’t spend a week of my life flying’

Leaving Las Vegas was not so lucky for these tourists.

A Canadian couple is protesting WestJet Airlines after a flight home from Las Vegas, Nevada, nearly turned into a week-long odyssey from hell.

“I thought this was a mistake,” Andrew Korchacov, 44, of Terrace, BC, told the National Post as he recalled the plane’s extreme delay. “I can’t spend a week of my life flying. It doesn’t make sense.”

He and his wife, 42, who has chosen to remain anonymous, had boarded a WestJet flight to Sin City on Monday, Nov. 4 for a weeklong trip. They planned to return next Sunday via a red-eye flight from Vegas to Vancouver, followed by a second trip on Monday to their hometown.

That trip would take roughly 25 hours and leave the Canucks plenty of time to get to work on Tuesday.

This ironclad plan backfired, however, when the pair arrived at the airport to find that their flight had been canceled and overbooked.

However, the new route was much more circuitous than their original route and included many more stops. First, the Korchacovs were scheduled to fly from Vegas to San Francisco before hopping on a second flight two hours later to Vancouver.

They would then stop in Vancouver for 52 hours before taking a 90-minute overnight flight to Calgary, after which they would fly home to Terrace the next morning.

This route would take the couple a hair under 72 hours – nearly three times the original journey.

According to Google Maps, the trip from Vegas to Terrace would take half as long as 36 hours, The National Post reported.

Horrified by the circular flight plan, Korchacov reported to the WestJet check-in desk to voice his concerns, but said he was treated rudely by the employee.

“They said ‘Well, you’ve re-booked your ticket… what do you want’?” recalled the kidnapped traveler. “I said: “What do I want? I want to go home’.”

However, when he told the employee he would pay more to return early, they threatened to call insurance, according to Korchacov.

He and his wife eventually ended up dropping over $2,000 on an Air Canada ticket.

This took them from Las Vegas to Portland, then to Vancouver, before finally arriving in Terrace on Monday at 4pm – 18 hours or more after their flight started.

“I just did what I did” to get home, the distraught flyer said. “If I had to walk, I would. If I had to drive, I would.”

WestJet has since addressed the ordeal in a statement to the National Post. “We sincerely apologize to Mr. and Mrs. Korchacov for the inconvenience they experienced traveling from Las Vegas to Terrace,” said an airline representative.

They attributed the circular return route to the fact that there was “limited availability at Terrace both within our network and through alternative carriers, making re-accommodation options extremely challenging.”

The representatives claimed they notified the couple of the “flight suspension via email and phone” and informed them they would be eligible for hotel and meal vouchers if they “accepted alternative travel arrangements with WestJet.”

However, Korchacov claimed he had never heard from the airline.