American airline abandoned passengers in Mexico: how they got home

Sun Country Airlines said it plans to refund the return flight to passengers stuck in Mexico after the airline canceled its last flights this season due to a snowstorm in Minnesota.

Фото: Depositphotos

Instead of changing the flight schedule of their airplanes or sending charters for stranded 250 passengers traveling to the Mexican resort towns of Cabo San Lucas and Mazatlan, the airline Sun country abolished flights and then told customers to book flights themselves to return home to the USA.

The airline stated that it could not send the plane to Mexico in order to pick up the stranded passengers, since this would lead to the removal of the aircraft from other directions and the cancellation of other flights, which would cause discontent of other passengers.

According to the airline's website, the next scheduled flight from Los Cabos to Minnesota will take place on June 29, and there will be no flights to Mazatlan.

Outraged passengers left dozens of angry comments in Twitter, having tagged the airline, according to them, they can not reach the support service Sun countryto discuss the situation with them.

In email USA Today, CEO Sun country Jude Bricker said that the company decided to cover the cost of a return flight for “rightfully disappointed” customers who had to pay for tickets home after canceling the flight.

“Looking back, we must make a rescue flight to MZT (Mazatlán)but service options are limited. Sjd (Cabo San Lucas) has more service options and we felt the best option for these customers was to give them a full refund both ways Sun countryto make alternative arrangements as quickly as possible,” Bricker said in an email.

He continued, saying that Sun country will return to passengers the cost of round-trip tickets and some additional travel expenses paid by passengers during their return home.

“We will also cover any additional reasonable transportation costs they incur in excess of their original fare for the flight to Sun country, not limited to the difference they paid to the other carrier, but also includes taxis, shuttles, any reasonable transportation costs necessary to get them to and from the airport,” Bricker wrote in an email.

However, he did not mention in the e-mail whether Sun country to reimburse passengers for overnight expenses in Mexico when searching for new flights home.

Solution Sun country appeared after the company was criticized not only by passengers and the media, but also by politicians in Minnesota. Senator Tina Smith expressed “grave concern” about how Sun country coped with the cancellation of flights last weekend.

In his letter, Birker explained in detail what caused the problems Sun countryand why management decided to deal with the situation as it was done.

“When originally scheduled flights were canceled, the call center could not be guaranteed to receive all incoming calls,” Bricker said, mentioning earlier that many workers had difficulty getting to the call center during the snowstorm.

“We do not have interline agreements with other airlines, so our ability to accommodate customers with other airlines is the same as passengers booking tickets themselves, but it would take much longer to do so,” he added, explaining why Sun country decided to provide a refund and instruct customers to independently find the return flight.

Looking ahead, Bricker promised that the company would work to avoid a repetition of the incident.

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