Ont. family stuck in Cancun says Sunwing rep told them 'I'll make sure people stay here forever'

A Toronto family with a five-month old baby who were stranded in Mexico after their Sunwing flights were cancelled says a Sunwing representative told them if they didn’t stop challenging their situation they would be left in Mexico “forever.”

The comments were caught on video by another passenger as travellers were shuffled from hotels to airports and back again for days, some sleeping in hotel lobbies or on airport floors.

“I was devastated. I have paid Sunwing to take me back to Toronto. I’m not asking for a favour,” Ritesh Bhatia told CTV News on Wednesday. “They should understand that we are in trouble. We have a baby to take care of.”

The previously unreported exchange is an illustration of how powerless hundreds of passengers felt as they were given confusing and conflicting information by the airline, as operational difficulties were compounded by a North America wide storm.

Canada’s Transport Minister, Omar Alghabra, tweeted Wednesday he is concerned with the current situation with Sunwing Airlines.

“This ongoing situation is unacceptable. Canadians must receive the information they need to return safely. We expect all airlines to keep their passengers informed when it comes to delivering a service that they were paid to do,” he wrote.

One video shows Bhatia’s son Rumi crying in his arms as he speaks to one airline representative on Christmas Eve, days after they had been unable to return from a Cancun vacation that was supposed to have ended on Dec. 21.

Bhatia told CTV News he arrived early that day to wait in line, but found himself at the bottom of a list prepared by a Sunwing representative about people who may be getting on a flight to Toronto.

“I was infuriated with that. I was with a five month old baby, waiting since early in the morning,” Bhatia said.

That’s when he says that representative told him to back off, saying, “I will make sure people stay here forever.”

A video taken by another passenger shows part of the exchange, which left Bhatia scared that the representative could follow through and he would be stranded for much longer.

CTV News reached out to Sunwing with questions about the video on Tuesday, but has not yet heard back.

Ritesh Bhatia is seen in this undated photograph with his family.

Passenger Hina Cacheiro Low told CTV News she saw the exchange too.

“I didn’t take it as a joke,” she said. “I took it as, “Whoa, we’re not in Canada, I don’t fully understand what laws apply here and what could happen to me if we say the wrong thing or upset the wrong person.”

Cacherio Low said her family was also left in the dark, and that she rarely received any updates on new flights from Sunwing, thanks to an app that didn’t seem to work.

One photo shows her family lying on a blanket over a concrete sidewalk outside the Cancun airport at around 2 a.m. waiting to see if they will have a hotel room to sleep in that night.

“It’s definitely not the Christmas we imagined,” she said. “It’s definitely been a nightmare.”

They were among hundreds stuck at Sunwing destinations including Cancun and Cuba. Video taken by passengers at the Cancun airport shows them chanting “take us home!” Cacheiro Low said angry passengers at the airport were met with gun-toting security forces.

After losing hope in Sunwing, Cacheiro Low says she spent $4,000 on new flights that got them back to Toronto on Monday night — money they’re not sure they will ever see.

CTV Aviation Specialist Phil Durdey said the first few cancelled flights had a domino effect on the remainder of Sunwing’s network.

“It snowballed because Sunwing doesn’t fly every day to that destination. So the people get pushed off for a couple days. But the other aircraft are already full. The problem is there are not enough seats to go around, and they’ve got to start chartering aircraft,” he said.

Sunwing tweeted Tuesday, “We have completed 2 recovery flights so far this week, planned another 8 recovery flights which are scheduled to depart up to and including Dec 30, and are currently finalizing recovery plans for our remaining passengers in destination.”

Passenger rights advocate Gabor Lukacs told CTV News that Sunwing telling Bhatia that he may never go home is akin to breaking a contract.

“This moment will be very important in that passenger getting compensation. This should be compensated beyond the normal framework. This is outrageous, this is egregious, what we are seeing,” he said.

Bhatia said after the representative told him that, he stayed quiet, and got on a Sunwing flight home the following day.

Only now, in Canada, did he feel safe talking about his experience.

“These kinds of threats should not be given to any passenger. They were not kind to us,” Bhatia said.