Michael Garnett and his wife, Rebecca Ryder, an airline pilot, used employee donations to ferry hundreds of Ukrainian refugees to Canada over the past four months. Buddy cards are standby tickets that an airline gives employees as a perk to share with family and friends. The passes are free, but users have to pay the taxes. On Thursday, the Calgary-based airline asked them to stop using employee friend cards in this way, saying they have other established programs to support charities and refugees.
50% discount until the end of September
But on Monday, after CBC News published a story about it, WestJet offered the couple’s charity 50 percent discount codes until Sept. 30. Garnett says that while it’s something, it’s a very short-term compromise. “They’re offering us tickets at about three to four times the price we’re paying for nine days, so we’re not too happy with that offer. It’s something, it’s a starting point, but it’s not going to bring a lot of people here,” he said. “We’ve looked around and looked online for the best prices to get people in the most efficient way and we know that’s through the pass buddy program.”
Others offer help
Garnett says there have been positives in the past week as well for their charity, called Help From Canada. Monetary donations have come in, and she has also heard from a Montreal-based airline, Air Transat, which she says has offered to work with the charity on discounted flights for Ukrainian refugees. “They have reached out and are incredibly helpful,” he said. “They’re working with an organization called 4Ukraine.ca and they’ve done a fantastic job … and they’re going to do everything they can to get us discount codes in the short term, but also to build a partnership with us in the long term.”
Charity founders reflect on success they’ve had, providing passage for Ukrainian families
Their organization has helped nearly 200 Ukrainians who fled the war on flights to Canada In a statement, WestJet said that following an application submitted Sept. 18 through its Airport Community Giving Program, the airline’s community investment team provided the charity with details the next day on how it could partner, which included a offer to provide promotional codes. “This process has not changed and it is an important clarification that the offer of discount codes was not facilitated in any extraordinary way, it was based on a long-standing formalized process that was already in place,” spokeswoman Morgan Bell said. “Support is available from May 2022 and WestJet originally provided this charity [or its] works with support via internal request in May 2022 with identical flight discount codes.” In an earlier statement provided to the CBC on Sunday, the airline said the buddy cards would be used “exclusively for personal leisure travel.” “They are not a guaranteed mechanism for travel as they are only offered on standby and may lead to situations where users are unable to complete their journey,” spokeswoman Morgan Bell said.
“We can give them reassurance”
Garnett said Help From Canada has always known these passes are only for standby travel, and they have still managed to bring nearly 200 Ukrainians to Canada. “That’s the conversation we’ve been trying to have with WestJet since last Thursday. They said they had some concerns and instead of talking about those concerns with us, they just said shut it down,” he said. “Of course we have a convincing plan. We’ve been doing this for about four months now and we’ve hosted families in Dublin, Paris, Barcelona and Rome. We have a group of monks who take people in when they don’t get on their first flight. “Well, in my mind, if they had concerns about these things, all they had to do was ask. We can give them the reassurance.”
