Family stranded at London, Ont. airport spend thousands to get home

By the time they got to Toronto Sunday night, Krystle Linic and her grandmother could smile, but getting to that point was an ordeal. Linic, her parents, and grandmother had booked a roundtrip flight from Edmonton to London so they could be at Linic's great-aunt's funeral. Getting out of Edmonton was no issue, but flying home was a frustrating and expensive process.

By the time they got to Toronto Sunday night, Krystle Linic and her grandmother could smile, but to get to that point had been an ordeal.

Linic, her parents, and grandmother had booked a roundtrip flight from Edmonton to London so they could be at Linic's great-aunt's funeral over the weekend. Getting out of Edmonton was no issue, but flying back home became a frustrating, expensive process.

"We couldn't talk to anybody," says Linic. "There was nobody to talk to, nobody to call."

The family had checked in for their Swoop flight Saturday night, only to learn in the morning it had been cancelled, Linic explains.

Swoop, and its parent airline, WestJet, had experienced what it called a "severe disruption" to its service because of a system-wide outage. Hundreds of flights across the country were cancelled as a result.

Linic and her family were rebooked on a flight for Tuesday morning, which was not a reasonable option for her.