The cascading flight cancellations over the Christmas holiday period, during which hundreds of passengers were stranded for days in Canadian airports, has roused Ottawa into a pantomime of action.
On Thursday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his government is “looking at strengthening” the rules that protect the rights of airline passengers. And the Canadian Transportation Agency – the industry regulator that also serves as a tribunal for settling airline passenger complaints – said this week it will extend decisions on individual complaints to other passengers from the same flight.
That’s all very nice but it ignores the real problem – that Canada’s passenger rights regime is fundamentally flawed.
The independent watchdog Air Passenger Rights laid out the stark failings of that regime last month in a submission to the House of Commons standing committee on transport.
The chief problem is straightforward: Canada’s Air Passenger Protection Regulations (APPR) make it too easy for airlines to dodge liability for cancellations and delays, with the result that denial of compensation is the norm.
Under the APPR, a Canadian airline that cancels or delays a flight is off the hook for compensation when the disruption is caused by things under its control that are deemed to be safety issues, such as crew shortages, routine mechanical problems or a strike by its own workers.
As well, settling a claim is a lengthy, difficult process that puts the burden of proof on the shoulders of passengers, each of whom may only be seeking several hundred dollars. “The language [of the APPR] is complex and legalistic,” a small-claims court judge in Nova Scotia wrote in a 2021 ruling. “One needs detailed or specific knowledge to invoke the claims system; and the process to seek compensation, once invoked, does not lend itself to quick resolution.”
This no doubt explains why the CTA has a backlog of 30,000 complaints. And it stands in sharp contrast to the European Union’s passenger-rights regime.
There, airlines are responsible for delays and cancellations in all but the most extreme circumstances: terrorism, sabotage, volcanic eruptions, airspace closings and freak weather. Unlike in Canada, crew shortages, routine technical problems and internal labour disputes don’t absolve them of paying compensation.
More importantly, the burden of proof is reversed. If a flight’s arrival is delayed by more than three hours, passengers are automatically entitled to preset compensation of between €250 and €600, depending on the length of the flight. It is up to the airlines to prove they don’t owe the money; all the passenger has to do to make a claim is provide their flight number and date.
Not only that – and this will make many Canadians shake their heads in disbelief – the airlines are automatically required to provide stranded passengers with food, overnight accommodation and two free telephone calls.
Meanwhile, back in Canada, passengers are not even automatically entitled to a refund if their flight is cancelled.
In the EU and the United States, passengers whose flights are cancelled for any reason at all are legally owed a full refund if they choose to abandon their travel plans.
But under the APPR, airlines don’t have to issue a refund if they can book a passenger on another flight to the same destination within 48 hours. That creates the ludicrous scenario in which airlines can dodge paying a refund by informing a weekend traveller whose Friday flight is cancelled that they are booked on a Sunday flight that will get them to their destination just in time to check in for their return trip.
The other big problem in Canada is the near-zero prospect of enforcement by the CTA when airlines violate the APPR. The CTA rarely issues notices of violation, and when it does the fines are minimal.
All these factors make it cheaper for airlines to ignore passenger rights than to respect them. Why make sure to have a backup crew on standby when there is no consequence for failing to do so; why worry about paying compensation that is too hard for most passengers to collect.
Ottawa should adopt the EU’s standards, increase the fines for rulebreakers, and get the CTA to do its job properly. The political pantomime needs to end.
Sadly, passenger rights aren’t the only problem facing the airline industry today – Canada’s airports also need fixing. We’ll look at that issue in tomorrow’s editorial.