WestJet And Sporting Gear

For the past year and a half, I’ve been flying almost monthly from Toronto to Edmonton, Alberta.  On the majority of those trips, I’ve taken two pieces of luggage and then a third piece that either contained fly fishing rods in tubes and then packed in a ski bag, or skis packed in the ski bag.

The policy of WestJet seems to have been that they allow two pieces of checked luggage as well as sporting gear.  In my case, the skis or rods need to be checked into the “oversize luggage” counter.

Up until two weeks ago, I’ve never had a problem taking two pieces of luggage plus whatever is inside the ski bag, be it fly rods or cross country skis.  However, when I traveled to Edmonton on the 10th of September, I came across a snarly WestJet employee who told me that she would need to charge me extra because I was checking in three pieces of luggage.

It was the very first time I’d ever come across a snarly WestJet employee. I was a bit surprised as my experience with WestJet in the past has been nothing short of tremendous and and an obvious commitment to customer satisfaction. I’m not going to complain about the snarly attitude I was met with – perhaps she was having a bad day – everyone has their own major battles to contend with.

But, I did explain to the employee that in the past year and a half, I’d taken about 10 trips (20 when you include both ways) with WestJet, with the three pieces of luggage.  My main piece of luggage contains my day to day clothing and personal needs.  The second piece of luggage contains my fly fishing (or when relevant, my cross country skiing gear), and the ski bag that goes into the oversize check in, contains the rods and/or skis.  And in all of those previous trips, I’ve never been charged for an “extra piece of luggage.”  I should note that WestJet allows as standard, two pieces of checked luggage, but they also allow for checking sporting gear as well.

The WestJet employee snarled and said, “You are always charged.”

I replied, “I’m sorry, but no I have never been charged extra.  I can open the suitcases and show you that one of them contains nothing but my fly fishing gear which include waders, wading boots, vest, and fly fishing boat bag which has most of my gear, reels and spare spools.  My other suitcase is just personal items and clothing.  And of course, this oversize is my fly rods.”

The employee just stared at me.  She then said, “Well, I’m going to have to get authorization from someone else to allow this.”

She then printed off the luggage stickers and attached them.  I waited for her to call someone to authorize whatever she needed to authorize.  She never called anyone.  I was kind of confused.  She put through my two suitcases, and then growled, “Here, take this and go over to the oversize check in.”  No communication about whether fees were being waived or what.  In the end, I was NOT charged for extra checked baggage.

On my way back from Edmonton, I had a much more pleasant WestJet employee but she also indicated there should be a charge for the third piece of baggage which contained fishing rods.  I then explained to her that I found it odd that in the previous year and a half, I’d never had a difficult time and told her about the most recent experience I had in Toronto.  I told her that in the spring, summer and autumn months, I’d been taking out my fly fishing gear and in the winter, my skiing gear along with a second suitcase that contained necessary items to use the fly rods or skis.  I invited her to look inside my suitcases.

To her credit, she agreed to waive any extra fees and she even went further.  She told me that from now on, a special code would be associated with my name whenever I checked my luggage with WestJet in the future.  The code has something to do with sporting gear, and that code means that I’ll never in the future even have a suggestion that I need to  pay for a third piece of luggage when checking in.

To be fair, WestJet has generally been awesome towards me and I’ve flown them 30 or more times in the past two years if you include the return flights.  On the other hand, I’ve heard horror stories about Air Canada – one of our teammates flew Air Canada to Grande Prairie, and he was going to be charged a very excessive fee for his fly rod that was more than the value of the fly rod so he left it at home and purchased a fly rod in Alberta after his arrival.

If you do travel within Canada regularly, and need to transport sporting gear, perhaps you might want to look at WestJet’s policies and find out about this “special code” yourself to save some headaches – and the odd employee who might be having a grumpy day.

I should also point out that WestJet is not the only airline that I’ve had good experiences transporting fly fishing rods (although they are the best).  A couple of years ago when I was returning from Belfast, Northern Ireland, I had purchased a Greys rod and Air Transat did not charge me an excess baggage fee.  And instead of checking the rod (in a protective tube) in, they allowed me to carry it on to the plane where it was checked as separate cabin baggage, along with those that were traveling with baby strollers, infant car seats, wheelchairs, and the like.

As far as travel within Canada, it will take an awful lot to impede upon my loyalty – loyalty that WestJet has earned.