Monday, September 1, 2008

ZOOM and Gloom

CUSTOMER ANNOUCEMENT

Zoom Airlines sincerely regrets to advise its customers that it has suspended operations with effect from 18:00 UTC on Thursday 28 August.

All flights scheduled to depart from have been cancelled and Zoom's aircraft have been grounded.

Both Zoom Airlines Inc and Zoom Airlines Ltd, the Canadian and UK airlines, will be filing for insolvency proceedings in their home countries today.For customers who have future travel plans involving a Zoom flight for which reservations and payment have been made, you should refer to your credit or debit card company to apply for a refund.

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The email arrived in my Junk box, and I'm almost wishing I never opened it. I assumed it was confirmation of our return flight, or at worst, a slight change in schedule. But this was a slam dunk. Never saw it coming. It continued on and on, but it didn't take long to get the drift.


Our flight wasn't until September 13, so we at least had a couple weeks to recover from the shock. Imagine the people arriving at the airport to discover the ticket counter boarded up and their "vacation" in a downward spiral.


ZOOM Airlines is (was) a low-cost Canadian company, based in Ottawa. Always thought those Canucks were the most honest, reliable, trustworthy, down-to-earth folks on the planet. Our flight from Montreal to Paris was great, they treated us humanely---so much more respectful than flying the unfriendly skies of some US airports. I'm sorry they couldn't make a go of it.


We have now re-scheduled on Air Transat Airlines (an airline of unknown origin) from Toulouse to Montreal, so they have two weeks to go under. Fergus is excited, though, because we get to drop him off right at the ticket counter (in his kennel of course).

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Luke extends regrets about the bankruptcy of your airline...you just can't trust anyone these days!
I hope you didn't have a huge increase in your fare. At least Fergus is happy!

The times for the flights to my class reunion have been changed twice since I bought the tickets...allowing me to spend more and more time in the "lovely" Atlanta airport...I'm just waiting to see if they change again before I leave in 2.5 weeks!

I'm just hoping I won't have any additional "hurricane-related" problems to complicate my trip further!