There were a lot of passengers at Canadian Rockies International Airport stranded because of fog in Calgary last Friday. Weather delays are a part of flying, especially in the winter, and usually passengers just take them in stride and fly when the weather clears.
But sometimes, an emergency means you need to get to family as soon as possible and waiting a day for a flight is extremely upsetting.
That’s where Integra Air came to the rescue last Friday.
Darrell Garton of Integra says that Integra did manage to fly into Cranbrook late in the day on Friday.
“There was freezing fog in Calgary,” he said. “Air Canada cancelled all their flights. When the fog lifted at 3 or 4 p.m. we flew in. We took a bunch of people who had been waiting for Air Canada flights and had a full plane.”
On the run back to Calgary, there was only one passenger but the Integra flight took off as scheduled. That’s when Garton ran into a very distraught woman at the airport.
“She had to get up north as quickly as possible because of a family medical emergency. Our plane was in the air, but I called the boss (Integra owner John Macek) and he okayed bringing it back.
“Our thought was, let’s get these people on a plane so they can get to their family.”
The extra passengers were flown to Calgary by Integra for free.
“We are here to provide the people of Cranbrook and its surrounding area with a service, and going above and beyond is part of what we do every day. We were happy we could help out,”said Macek.