Air travel across Canada has faced a turbulent start to 2026, with passengers on Air Canada and WestJet bearing the brunt of a string of major disruptions. From severe winter weather sweeping through Toronto Pearson and other hubs to a system outage that briefly grounded WestJet departures nationwide, thousands of travelers have seen carefully planned itineraries unravel into queues, diversions and unexpected overnight stays. While each incident has its own trigger, together they reveal how fragile the country’s air travel ecosystem can be when weather, technology and operational pressures collide.
Snowstorm Chaos at Toronto Pearson Cripples Schedules
In early February, a powerful winter storm rolled across southern Ontario, hammering Toronto Pearson International Airport, the country’s busiest hub and a vital gateway for both Air Canada and WestJet. Between February 7 and 8, more than 300 flights were delayed and nearly 40 were canceled at Pearson alone as snow, gusting winds and icy conditions slowed every aspect of airport operations. Air Canada, as the dominant carrier at the airport, was hit hardest, but WestJet also felt the impact as the storm snarled the tightly packed schedules that airlines rely on to keep aircraft and crews in position.
For travelers, the disruptions were immediate and highly visible. Check-in halls filled with passengers staring at departure boards lit up with “delayed” notices as ground crews struggled to keep up with de-icing queues and runway clearing. Many flights that did depart left hours behind schedule, triggering missed connections and forcing unplanned overnight stays in Toronto or onward transit hubs. The cascading delays were especially painful for long-haul travelers whose journeys depended on precisely timed connections through Pearson to Europe, Asia or the United States.
Airport officials and airline representatives pointed to safety as the overriding priority. De-icing requires strict protocols and cannot be rushed, and low visibility imposes spacing requirements between takeoffs and landings that reduce airport capacity. While such measures are routine in Canadian winters, the intensity and timing of this storm, arriving during a busy travel period, meant there was little slack in the system. The result was a day and a half of severely constrained operations that rippled through the network long after the last snowflakes fell.
Air Canada: Weather, Disruptions and a Diverted Transatlantic Flight
For Air Canada, the snowstorm arrived on top of an already challenging winter season marked by bouts of extreme cold, heavy snowfall and freezing fog across the country. In early January, a powerful Arctic front had already forced hundreds of delays and close to a hundred cancellations nationwide, with Air Canada and its regional affiliates bearing a significant share. Together, these weather events have strained crew rosters and aircraft rotations, making the carrier more vulnerable to knock-on disruptions when another major storm strikes.
The February snowstorm also intersected with a separate operational headache: the diversion of Air Canada flight AC858, a transatlantic service from Toronto to London Heathrow. The aircraft was forced to divert to St. John’s, Newfoundland, following reports of an unruly passenger on board. In normal circumstances, such a diversion is disruptive enough, requiring a new security screening process, re-crewing, and complex coordination for passengers who miss onward connections. Layered on top of weather-related delays and gate shortages at Pearson, the incident added yet another complication for an airline already stretched by the conditions.
Passengers on AC858 endured hours of uncertainty, with some spending extended time on the tarmac and then facing the prospect of being routed back to Toronto rather than continuing directly to London. For affected travelers, the episode underscored how quickly a routine flight can derail when irregular operations are already in play at a major hub. Though safety and security considerations always come first, such high-profile disruptions often fuel frustration among customers who feel caught in a widening gap between schedule promises and on-the-day realities.
WestJet’s System Outage Adds a Technological Twist
While Air Canada grappled primarily with weather and operational knock-ons, WestJet was hit by a different kind of disruption: a system outage that briefly forced the airline to halt all departures across its network. In an incident reported in mid-August 2025 but with continuing relevance to how the carrier manages its operations, a technological failure interfered with the crucial handover process between maintenance teams and flight crews, essentially freezing the pipeline that allows aircraft to be cleared for service.
Airports from Calgary and Saskatoon to Toronto Pearson and Montréal–Trudeau saw WestJet departures paused or delayed as the airline rushed to resolve the issue. Local airport authorities described the problem as a network-wide technical issue tied to the carrier, and WestJet later confirmed that the outage was temporary and had been resolved. Even so, the episode was the second major IT-related event for the airline that summer, following a cybersecurity incident in June that affected internal systems and mobile app functionality.
These back-to-back technology problems highlight how deeply modern airline operations depend on digital platforms. From maintenance sign-offs and crew scheduling to passenger check-in and baggage handling, a single system glitch can reverberate through the entire network in minutes. When an outage occurs during peak travel hours or at several major airports simultaneously, even a brief disruption can leave aircraft out of position and crews timed out, producing rolling delays that linger well after the underlying technical fault is fixed.
Storms, Staffing and the Fragile Balance of Canada’s Skies
Beyond the individual snowstorms and system outages, a broader story is emerging about capacity and resilience in Canadian airspace. WestJet has previously pointed to chronic staffing shortages at NAV Canada, the private, non-profit corporation that manages the country’s civil air navigation system, as a key factor in summer delays. Reduced air traffic controller staffing levels can lead to flow restrictions, holding patterns and reduced runway throughput even in clear weather, and those constraints become even more pronounced when storms or low visibility enter the equation.
When winter weather like the recent Ontario snowstorm sweeps in, the system is squeezed from both ends. On the ground, de-icing and snow removal slow operations, and in the air, controllers must increase spacing between aircraft for safety, cutting overall capacity. Airlines such as Air Canada and WestJet, which operate high-frequency schedules into hubs like Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, have less room to absorb shocks when the sky effectively shrinks. The same number of flights must now compete for fewer available takeoff and landing slots.
The result for passengers is a pattern that has become all too familiar: even if their specific route is not directly affected by severe weather, their flight may still be delayed or canceled because aircraft and crews are stuck elsewhere in the network. Travelers departing from secondary cities often see their flights canceled outright to free up resources for long-haul or high-demand trunk routes, reinforcing the sense that the network’s pressure points are concentrated at a handful of major hubs rather than evenly spread across the country.
How Disruptions Ripple Across Travelers’ Plans
For business travelers returning to the office after the holidays or leisure passengers heading abroad, the recent disruptions have translated into missed meetings, lost vacation days and rising anxiety about the reliability of air travel. When a storm grounds flights at a hub like Toronto Pearson, the effects reach far beyond the immediate region. Connections to Western Canada, the Atlantic provinces, the United States and overseas destinations all rely on the smooth functioning of that central node.
Families on multi-leg journeys face particular hardships. A weather-related delay on a short domestic hop can cause them to miss a once-daily departure to a sun destination or a European gateway, forcing overnight stays and additional costs. While airlines typically offer rebooking and, where applicable, hotel accommodation, availability can dry up quickly when hundreds of passengers are competing for the same handful of alternative flights. Social media channels rapidly fill with accounts of long queues, limited information and stretched customer service teams.
Frequent flyers, meanwhile, have grown more accustomed to building extra slack into their itineraries. Some now opt for longer connection windows instead of the minimum allowed by booking systems, trading a few more hours at the airport for greater peace of mind. Others, especially on time-sensitive trips, are shifting critical meetings to virtual platforms or choosing rail or car travel for regional journeys where practical. While this may represent a rational adaptation, it also underscores the erosion of confidence in the predictability of air travel, particularly during Canada’s long winter months.
What Airlines Are Doing to Recover and Rebuild Confidence
Both Air Canada and WestJet have responded to recent disruptions with a mix of short-term recovery measures and longer-term adjustments. In the immediate aftermath of storms or outages, airlines prioritize getting stranded passengers to their destinations, often by adding extra sections, upgauging aircraft on busy routes, and partnering with other carriers where interline agreements allow. They also lean heavily on digital tools, encouraging travelers to manage rebookings via apps and websites to ease pressure on airport counters and call centers.
Over the longer term, carriers are investing in technology and operational resilience. WestJet’s experience with system outages and a prior cybersecurity incident has accelerated efforts to harden IT infrastructure, introduce redundancies and refine protocols for rapidly switching to backup systems. Air Canada, which has contended with both weather-related chaos and, at times, labor-related operational challenges, has focused on schedule planning, contingency crew pools and closer coordination with airport authorities during forecast storms.
Communication is another critical front. After highly publicized disruptions, airlines typically review how and when they inform passengers of delays and options. Clearer push notifications, more frequent updates and better signage at airports can ease some of the frustration even when the underlying problems cannot be resolved quickly. In an age where social media criticism can go viral in real time, both Air Canada and WestJet are under growing pressure to show they are not only reacting to disruptions, but actively learning from them.
Practical Advice for Travelers Navigating a Volatile Season
For travelers considering trips with Air Canada, WestJet or their regional partners in the coming weeks, the recent disruptions offer several practical lessons. Winter in Canada is always a risk factor, but storms striking key hubs like Toronto, Montreal or Calgary can have outsized impacts. Booking earlier flights in the day, when schedules are less likely to have accumulated delays, can improve your odds of getting out as planned. Where possible, choosing direct services rather than connections through busy hubs reduces the number of potential failure points in your itinerary.
It is also wise to build flexibility into plans, especially for international travel. Allowing a buffer day before critical events such as cruises, tours or major business meetings can provide an essential cushion if flights are delayed or rerouted. Monitoring weather forecasts for departure and arrival cities, as well as for major hubs on your route, can give an early warning that it may be prudent to adjust travel dates. Many airlines, including Air Canada and WestJet, sometimes offer fee waivers or flexible change policies when severe storms are forecast, making it easier to move travel to a safer window.
Finally, staying connected to your airline through mobile apps and flight status alerts is more important than ever. In the event of a system outage, storm or other disruption, those channels are often updated before gate agents or call centers can assist everyone in line. Having a backup plan in mind, such as alternative routes or even another carrier on the same corridor, allows you to move quickly if rebooking options are limited. While no traveler can eliminate all risk of disruption, informed planning and realistic expectations can help turn a potential ordeal into a manageable inconvenience.
Looking Ahead: Can Canada’s Air Travel Network Adapt?
The recent wave of disruptions affecting Air Canada and WestJet underscores a central truth about modern air travel: it is a tightly interdependent system where weather, technology, staffing and infrastructure all interact. When any one of these elements falters, the consequences can be swift and far-reaching. As Canada moves deeper into 2026, airlines, regulators and airport authorities face growing pressure to strengthen this system so that a single storm or IT glitch does not leave thousands of travelers stranded.
Investments in air traffic control modernization, airport infrastructure, and airline technology will play a vital role, but so too will more transparent communication about the limits of what can be controlled. Extreme weather events are likely to become more frequent and more severe, and passengers may need to recalibrate their expectations about on-time performance during peak winter periods. At the same time, airlines cannot rely on weather as a universal explanation; reducing self-inflicted disruptions from brittle IT systems or tight crew scheduling will be essential to rebuilding trust.
For now, the message to travelers is clear: Air Canada and WestJet remain central pillars of the country’s aviation network, but that network is under strain. By staying informed, planning with flexibility and understanding the factors that drive disruption, passengers can better navigate an environment where turbulence on the ground is becoming almost as common as turbulence in the air.