Manager of Canada One Travel Mary Jane HiebertA local travel agent says they have been getting a lot of calls from their clients ever since Canada and the US banned all Boeing 737 Max 8 airliners from their airspace on Wednesday.

Canada made the decision to ground the jet following a fatal crash in Ethiopia that killed 157 passengers. This was the second such crash for the Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft in a span of six months.

Mary Jane Hiebert is the Manager of Canada One Travel in Steinbach. She says fortunately for her customers, many flights from Winnipeg are not affected.

"We have a lot of call-ins asking if they are on this plane because there are a number of series of 737's so people see on their itinerary that they are flying a 737 and right away it is going to their heads that they are flying this MAX 8 which a lot of them are not. That plane is used for very specific routes longer than Winnipeg Toronto etc."

Hiebert says thankfully most of the Boeing 737 aircraft that are currently in service are not the Max 8 variant and are still safe and flying. She notes many of the initial Max 8 flight cancellations and changes are being handled by the airlines themselves, but they will be helping all of their affected customers down the road.

"How long will this play because the impact is huge and the longer we have this grounding and the uncertainty, I think that is more concerning to me because people can book 365 days in advance and an aircraft is already assigned to a certain flight so the longer this takes, the more inconveniences we are going to have."

As we head toward spring break, Hiebert says many of the charter flights south are Air Transat and Sunwing and both of those airlines do not run the 737 Max 8 variant.