MONTREAL –
The backlog of air passenger complaints at Canada’s transport regulator has hit a brand new excessive topping 57,000, as dissatisfaction over cancellations and compensation persist three and a half years after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The numbers reveal that a median of greater than 3,000 complaints monthly have piled up on the Canadian Transportation Company (CTA) over the previous 12 months, with the present tally effectively over 3 times the entire from September 2022.
Vancouver residents Chad Kerychuk and Melissa Oei say they’re mulling a criticism after they arrived in Halifax six hours later than deliberate on a flight from their hometown in August 2021 and located themselves separated on board regardless of shopping for pricier tickets to pick out side-by-side spots upfront.
The couple mentioned WestJet has rejected their request for a partial refund.
“Greater than a 12 months has lapsed because the departure date and the declare interval has expired. As such, your declare can’t be accredited,” WestJet informed them in an electronic mail.
Kerychuk mentioned the response “seems like a flawed approach to deal with loyal clients” after years of choosing that service over opponents.
“There was no effort made to help us, as a result of we supported them throughout the pandemic. And I assumed that was utterly unfair,” he mentioned in a telephone interview.
WestJet notified clients the disruption was brought on by “unplanned upkeep,” an exclusion from compensation guidelines that the federal authorities says will quickly be unavailable to carriers.
In June, the federal government handed laws to overtake Canada’s passenger rights constitution, laying out measures to toughen penalties and tighten loopholes round traveller compensation in addition to streamline the complaints course of.
“There shall be no extra loopholes the place airways can declare a disruption is brought on by one thing outdoors of their management for a safety cause when it is not,” then-transport minister Omar Alghabra informed reporters in April.
The Canadian Press has reached out to the transportation company and WestJet for remark.
Whereas most reforms aren’t slated to take impact till Sept. 30, Air Passenger Rights advocacy group president Gabor Lukacs claims the company may take steps instantly to up the utmost wonderful for airline violations and kick off consultations on who bears the executive price of complaints.
Their rising tally comes as no shock to him.
“These hovering numbers present the failure of the federal government to design laws which are literally virtually enforceable and supply significant safety to passengers,” Lukacs mentioned.
He pointed to the Air Passenger Safety Rules, often known as the passenger rights constitution, that the federal government launched in 2019 — a authorized milestone for Canadian travellers, however one which did not stay as much as its promise attributable to loopholes and lack of simplicity, Lukacs mentioned.
“The federal government adopted a regime which is so difficult, so advanced … that it takes inordinate assets to really confirm eligibility (for compensation),” he mentioned.
He additionally referred to as out a “dismal file” of enforcement.
“The few fines that are being issued are for low-hanging fruit … and the CTA has not really laid the groundwork to situation greater fines.”
The amendments to the passenger rights constitution enable the regulator to ratchet up the utmost penalty for airline violations to US$250,000 — a tenfold improve — and put the regulatory price of complaints on carriers. In idea, that measure offers airways an incentive to brush up their service and thus cut back the variety of grievances towards them.
Since April 1, 2022, WestJet has obtained 9 fines from the Canadian Transportation Company amounting to US$280,580 for varied breaches, in keeping with information on the quasi-judicial physique’s web site.
Of that quantity, almost US$124,000 stems from failing to “present the prescribed compensation requested by passenger or an evidence as to why compensation just isn’t payable, inside 30 days after the day on which it obtained the request,” the contravention notices state.
The company has slapped Air Canada with six penalties — just one pertaining on to compensation — totalling US$82,650 since April 1, 2022. Its income within the 15 months after that date totalled US$24.3 billion.
This report by The Canadian Press was first printed Sept. 18, 2023.
