TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin WestJet from Toronto fully booked

We fly WestJet from Toronto Jan 28, back Feb 14 - both flights sold out. Checked the plane load around Xmas, down was about 1/2 full, return 2/3rds full. Now both flights sold out - full. I actually called as the web site said no flight available, only to be told that means sold out.
Curious to me given the Cdn dollar. Yes the WJ flights are in Cdn $'s, but a last minute decision to go to SXM would mean converting Cdn at around 70 cents or lower - Yikes
Or maybe some from the US are driving up and taking advantage of the Cdn dollar and getting a non stop to SXM?
First time in 5 yrs we've been on a full flight there and back
J&B

They're probably all Buffalonians!

We travelled a lot even when the $ was around 63 or 64 cents in the 70's. Some have other priorities, ours has and will always be family first/friends, then travel, when we could have lived in a much larger home and drove a Benz or Lexus. Every one is shocked to see Canadian have one of the highest personal debt rates in the world. That is what happens when you try to keep up with the Jones' on borrowed money. I am happy to see WestJet's flights full - good for SXM. When we spent several Christmas visits on SXM, we noticed many of the visitors arrived after Christmas and more after the New Year started.

We're going the 9th to the 18th on WJ, the outbound flight is sold out, the return seems to have a couple of seats.

We flew down on Westjet on Monday, and there were 136 passengers on board. I think the capacity is around 160. I checked the load around Christmas and it seemed quite full, but not the case on Monday. Perhaps some people are cancelling and as Moxie said some of the passengers could be from the States.

Kish, where did you fly out of on Monday, westjet?
We flew Jan 7 from Toronto & it was full.

As an additional data point on SXM traffic, I tried to book a rental car for our stay during the second week of Feb. Usually this is not a problem even this late in the game, but this year it took me three tries to find a car. Busy place!

Our flight going to SXM on Nov.1 was totally full and the same returning in December.There was not an empty seat on either flight.When looking at the flights online and even when you call, you are often told the flight is full with Westjet as they never over book their flights and always leave a few seats which can be booked for last minute travel or emergencies. We know this is true as we have been fortunate enough to get some of these seats.

There was a report I read yesterday and basically most of the major (US) airlines are flying at 85% capacity.

Not sure what is going on but weak CAD $$ or not, the planes appear to be full.

Direct flight from Montreal on mondays in high season with WS, jeepers !
End of november our flight was sold out too from Toronto with WS, so was the return flight in december !

Westjet has some great prices at air+hotel bundles. Even with the weak loonie, they are still affordable.

Was on the first return flight when West Jet first started flying into SXM....as they had brought passengers down there was only about 20 or 25 of us on the return flight & if I remember return was about $75..all in.....kate <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/canada.gif" alt="" />

We fly down on Sunday, fully booked.

We bought early and have the low price guarantee which helps a lot.

From Montreal.

Before making regular flights on their own WestJet would fly the off season flights for Air Transat when they fly direct from Toronto. We flew down at the end of October on WestJet and return in November on Air Transat.

I just booked our October return November for this year as we like the Plus seats and are usually at their cheapest now and rarely go on sale later in the year. The annual flights are usually full.