Canadians Cry Foul over High Airline Ticket Prices to Escape Wildfire
by John Hayward
Canadians on Thursday were outraged to discover that the price of plane tickets out of Yellowknife, the capital of the wildfire-ravaged Northwest Territories (NWT), has exploded to thousands of dollars per seat.
Airline representatives said the price controversy was caused by a misunderstanding, and reasonably priced seats are being made available as quickly as possible.
An evacuation order was issued for Yellowknife on Wednesday as fires closed in on the province’s largest city.
“By issuing an evacuation order now, we can implement the evacuation plan while the highway is still open and with plenty of flights to evacuate everyone,” Yellowknife Mayor Rebecca Alty said when the evacuation order was issued.
Residents were given until noon on Friday to safely depart the city. As of Thursday evening, the line of fires had closed to within ten miles of the NWT capital.
Canadian social media users began posting incredibly high prices for Air Canada tickets out of Yellowknife. One sample itinerary charged $4,665 for a flight from Yellowknife to Edmonton with three stops.
Considerable anger and confusion flowed from these social media posts, but Yahoo News Canada on Thursday said the highest ticket prices appeared to be anomalies, or perhaps the airlines made some quick corrections. By Thursday evening, both Air Canada and Westjet, which also flies out of Yellowknife, were listing far more ordinary ticket prices between $200 and $300.