Sask. ‘snowbirds’ in Mexico booking flights home

While many people are already hunkered down at home, some Saskatchewan “snowbirds” who spend winters down south are scrambling to find flights to get back home.

Former 980 CJME news anchor Alex Docking and his wife, Jill, are among many retirees who are making plans to get home from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.

In a phone interview with his former colleagues, Docking said he and Jill are still enjoying the view of the beach after dealing with the turmoil of a last-minute switch of airlines to find a flight.

“Life is continuing pretty much as normal for the most part. Bars and restaurants are open. There’s noticeably less people around because I think a lot of people are already taking the advice and started to head home,” Docking said.

“I look at the beach right now and there’s lots of empty chairs and loungers where normally they would be packed full if this was a month ago.”

He said they assumed they were in good shape scheduled to fly home via WestJet on March 28, but he noticed the announcement of cancellations as of this Sunday.

“We were on the phone to WestJet for a number of hours to try to get through. But interestingly enough, despite the fact that the president of WestJet announced that flights would be cancelled as of midnight on Sunday, the booking agent we spoke to had no knowledge of that,” Docking said.

He laughed while saying they were able to cancel the flight which doesn’t exist anymore and still get credit from the airline while managing to find an Air Canada flight through Vancouver leaving Sunday. The Dockings were also told all other remaining flights were booked solid.

Docking said COVID-19 is all anyone is talking about, and people are very concerned.

“They’re worried about what they’re going to face when they get home,” Docking said. “They’re worried about how they’re going to get home particularly now that the WestJet flights are cancelled in the next few days and of course if you haven’t already booked to get one of those flights when they were still available, they’re all filled up now.”

He questioned the way WestJet handled cancellations, saying the surprise announcement created a lot of confusion for travellers. While paying out of pocket for completely new flights is frustrating, Docking said at this point everyone just has to take what they can get and deal with it.

“I know a lot of people who would stay here until April before they come home and they’re kind of going, ‘OK, the only choice we have now is to sort of hang in here and see what happens,’ and that’s what they’re doing right now,” Docking said.

Docking knows they will have to self-isolate but is looking forward to returning home even though it will be a very confusing time.

“It will be nice to get back home and get a feel for where you are, get back to some level of normalcy at home even though everything is anything but normal right now,” he said.

While Docking knows he and his wife are vulnerable travelling as seniors — especially Jill because she takes medication which can suppress her immune system — they’re not extremely worried about the virus because they are relatively healthy.