An Air Canada plane flies over the city after departing from Pearson International Airport in Toronto on May 16, 2022.CARLOS OSORIO/Reuters
Canadian airlines may soon be facing stricter penalties for flight cancellations and delays.
The Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) has recently completed an initial consultation with industry stakeholders on its proposed changes to the Air Passenger Protection Regulations (APPR), which determine whether consumers have a right to be compensated by airlines in cases involving flight disruptions, lost or damaged baggage, or when they are denied boarding.
But consumer-rights advocates are skeptical about whether the agency will follow through with its suggested reforms, which are meant to be tougher on airlines.
The APPR first came into force in 2019, driven mainly by criticisms from advocates that there were too many loopholes for airlines, which made it difficult for consumers to get compensation.
In June, the Liberal government passed legislation to modify the Canada Transportation Act, placing the burden of proof on the airlines, rather than on the consumer, when it comes to extraordinary circumstances that would exempt them from compensating passengers.
Now airlines, pilots and advocates all have eyes on the CTA as it is set to publish the draft of amended regulations in the fall, which will provide more clarity on how the legislation will be put into effect.
“This is the government’s great chance to fix many of the damages it has done to Canadian passenger rights over the past five years,” says Gábor Lukács, president and founder of Air Passenger Rights, an independent watchdog of the airline industry.
Nightmarish scenes of Canadian passengers finding themselves stranded abroad after Sunwing cancelled several flights during last year’s holiday season, plus Air Canada being ranked last among major North American Airlines for flight arrival times, are examples cited by consumer-rights advocates pushing for stricter rules.
“It’s been a rotten time for travellers in the last two years,” John Lawford, executive director at the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC), said in an interview.
Airlines, however, believe the current regulations have been tested during the turbulent period of COVID-19, which was particularly tough on their operations and profitability.
“We haven’t really had much of an opportunity to test the existing APPRs in a ‘normal circumstance,’” Jeff Morrison, president and chief executive of the National Airlines Council of Canada, told The Globe and Mail.
Complicating matters further, the Supreme Court agreed last week to hear an appeal from a group of airlines looking to quash the 2019 APPR rules that boost compensation to passengers for delayed flights or damaged luggage.
The suggested changes this year to the regulations by the CTA would remove airline staff shortages and technical issues, considered part of normal operations, as reasons for flight disruptions that are beyond an airline’s control.
Instead, the airlines would have to prove that they were subjected to more extraneous scenarios, including natural disasters, sabotage and terrorism, war and health risks, among others.
The new rules would allow passengers to choose a refund in the event of flight changes where they can’t make it to their destination “within a reasonable time,” a discussion paper by the CTA states. It highlighted cases in which flights get rebooked much later than the original departure date, and the trip no longer meets the customer’s purpose.
The amendments also aim to improve the processing of passenger complaints, as the CTA currently has a backlog of more than 53,000 air travel complaints, according to the agency. The number of queries received by the CTA in the 2022 to 2023 period was 42,068 – more than five times the amount recorded in 2018 to 2019.
Advocates like Mr. Lukács put forward what they call “the European Gold Standard,” since passengers in the European Union are entitled to assistance by airlines with out-of-pocket expenses caused by denial of boarding, flight cancellation or flight delays of more than two hours.
In the EU, passengers are automatically eligible for compensation, ranging between €250 (about $368) and €600 (about $884), if the flight’s arrival is delayed by more than three hours. It’s up to the airline to prove otherwise based on a narrow list of exceptional circumstances.
Similar ideas are included in the new legislation, but Mr. Lukács is worried that they will not be reflected in the draft regulations that are coming this fall.
“We may be very disappointed when we actually see the final result,” he said, “but from what we have seen so far, there’s some good directions, good ideas there.”
Mr. Lawford of the PIAC believes it doesn’t make sense for the consumer to be held financially responsible for safety-related concerns such as aircraft technical issues, which he doesn’t classify as extraneous circumstances.
“It’s time for the airlines to internalize that cost,” he said.
But airlines say some of the changes to the passenger bill could translate into higher fares for customers, while arguing that carriers cannot be held accountable for issues in which third parties such as Nav Canada and the Canada Border Services Agency have shared responsibility.
“We’re happy to pay for what we’re responsible for. But an obligation to pay for other problems in the system is where we draw the line, justifiably,” Andrew Gibbons, vice-president of external affairs at WestJet, said in an interview. Air Canada made a similar argument in a report submitted to the CTA.
Meanwhile, the Canadian branch of the Air Line Pilots Association worries that the proposed changes could add pressure to pilots when making last-minute safety-related calls such as deciding whether to fly in the event of a maintenance issue.
“I’m not saying that a pilot is going to make decisions based on the airline’s economics,” but “pilots should not ever have that type of conflict going on in the background when, really, this should be straightforward safety decision making,” ALPA Canada president Tim Perry told The Globe.
In the draft regulations, Mr. Perry would like to see “a specific reference to safety-related decisions that pilots make in their discretion,” and that “authority over the flight of the pilot in command as per the Aeronautics Act is specifically mentioned and protected.”
The CTA said it hopes to publish final amendments by early 2024 after a second consultation period.