WestJet offers free flights to all Joe Clarks

If your name is Joseph Clark, or John Macdonald, or Richard Bennett, you can fly on the Soo's newest airline for free this Wednesday.

WestJet announced Monday that anyone with the same first and last names as a Canadian prime minister can fly for free on Feb. 20.

Here are the names that qualify: John Macdonald, Alexander Mackenzie, John Abbott, John Thompson, Mackenzie Bowell, Charles Tupper, Wilfrid Laurier, Robert Borden, Arthur Meighen, Mackenzie King, Richard Bennett, Louis Saint Laurent, John Diefenbaker, Lester Pearson, Pierre Trudeau, Joseph Clark, John Turner, Brian Mulroney, Kim Campbell and Jean Chretien.

Qualified individuals are required to book their flights before 7 p.m. MST tomorrow (Tuesday) by calling WestJet's specialty sales team at 1-888-493-7853. At the airport, they must present photo identification to confirm their names.

To qualified Saultites contacted this afternoon by SooToday.com, the deal seemed to good too be true. "It's pretty weird," we were told by a very skeptical John Macdonald who refused to indicate whether he might be interested.

Another prime ministerial namesake in the Soo hung up on us when we tried to explain the off-the-wall promotion.

The offer is definitely real. To get details, go to the company's website, www.westjet.com and click on the link "Press Releases" at the bottom of the page.

Siobhan Vinish, WestJet's director of communications, told SooToday.com that the offer applies to one-way or return flights to any of the 21 Canadian cities served by WestJet, as long as the return flight takes place on Feb. 20.

Cities served by WestJet are Victoria, Comox, Vancouver, Abbotsford/Fraser Valley, Prince George, Kelowna, Calgary, Edmonton, Grande Prairie, Fort McMurray, Saskatoon, Regina, Winnipeg, Thompson, Sudbury, Sault Ste. Marie, Thunder Bay, London, Ottawa, Hamilton and Moncton.

Vinish told us the airline has no idea how many Canadians will take advantage of the free flights, but a similar promotion at Hallowe'en for people named Orange, Black or Jack attracted 60 passengers.

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