Canadians are angry at Air Canada for high ticket prices for flights from Yellowknife as the city undergoes mass evacuation due to a raging wildfire.
Yellowknife is home to over 20,000 people and is the capital of the Northwest Territories. Officials ordered a complete evacuation on Wednesday as the risk to residents increased.
“Residents living along the Ingraham Trail, in Dettah, Kam Lake, Grace Lake and Engle Business District are currently at the highest risk and should evacuate as soon as possible,” read an action plan published on August 16. “Other residents have until noon on Friday, August 18, 2023, to evacuate.”
With such a short window, residents are frantically looking for flights.
A few airlines are being slammed for high ticket prices, but several posts specifically targeting Air Canada have emerged. Many have shared screenshots of unusual ticket prices.
The following screenshot was shared by several people, showing a post from Facebook user Jen Lennie. Daily Hive could not find the original post, but it shows tickets priced as high as $4,655 for a flight from Yellowknife to Calgary.
However, if you look at the itinerary closely, it shows multiple stopovers.
Apparently this is what @AirCanada is doing just when Yellowknife residents are trying to leave under a mandatory evacuation due to an encroaching wildfire. Jacked the prices to get out through the roof!! pic.twitter.com/G9ehMHONz1
— Brandi Morin (@Songstress28) August 17, 2023
People in Yellowknife have until Friday to evacuate the community. Look at Air Canada flight costs for the day after. Disgusting profiteering pic.twitter.com/8nPI8jZhS0
— Kristin Raworth (@KristinRaworth) August 17, 2023
Jo-Ann Rogers, whose children live off the high-risk Kam Lake Road area, posted on Facebook saying she was worried and concerned.
“Apparently, Air Canada has jacked up their prices to $1,200 one way out of Yellowknife,” she complained. “This should be illegal, and they should be called to task if this is what they have done!”
Daily Hive contacted Air Canada for a statement.
“The allegations about higher pricing are not correct. We have put in place a cap on our fares for non-stop flights out of Yellowknife, and if you go to the aircanada.com website, you will see the fares are not elevated,” a spokesperson for the airline told us.
“Although flights are nearly full, at the time I am sending this, there is a Yellowknife-Edmonton flight for $272, for example, for tomorrow. All flights are full today,” they said, attaching the following screenshot.
Air Canada
Daily Hive used Google’s flight finder and determined that it did, in fact, show much higher prices for Air Canada tickets than the official website and that no more non-stop flights to Edmonton were available for Thursday.
One-way tickets to Calgary seemed to start at $303, but only for flights with stopovers.
Air Canada shared that it has added two extra flights today, doubling its regular operation, to help evacuees.
“We are working with authorities to determine how long we can continue to operate given the limitations being imposed on flying due to the fires,” the carrier concluded.
Tickets for flights with stopovers are still looking quite expensive.
Daily Hive/Air Canada
Daily Hive looked at prices for a one-way ticket from Yellowknife to Edmonton on Air Canada’s official website earlier on Thursday morning. We only found Business Class fares for flights with stopovers, beginning at $1,022.
Within an hour, those also became unavailable for both Calgary and Edmonton.
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