Family slams Flair Airlines over eight-day flight delay that threatened Christmas

A mother and son who came to B.C. for an early Christmas holiday ended up stuck for eight days after Flair Airlines cancelled their flight and didn't rebook them until Boxing Day.

A family says Flair Airlines nearly ruined their Christmas holiday and could have cost them their jobs after it cancelled their flight last minute, then rebooked them more than a week later.

Disaster was ultimately averted after the family contacted Global News, and Flair confirmed late Friday that it would get them on an earlier flight.

Ndaba Zulu and his mother Patricia Defreitas thought they were doing everything right when they booked a trip from Calgary to Vancouver to visit family ahead of the holidays.

The duo intentionally booked their return flight to Calgary for Dec. 18, thinking they would beat the holiday rush and have plenty of time to get back for holiday gatherings and scheduled work shifts.

But things went sour when Zulu got a notification on the 18th that the flight was cancelled.

“In my head I was like OK, I’ll get a flight tomorrow,” he said.

That wasn’t the case. The earliest he was able to rebook was the 21st, but following multiple delays on Thursday that flight was also cancelled.

The earliest the airline would rebook the pair was on Dec. 26. Zulu said staff refused to book them on an earlier flight with a competitor.