Federal regulators have told airlines they could not use factors they “should have known about” as an excuse to deny compensation to passengers for poor service..According to Blacklock’s Reporter, the Canadian Transportation Agency listed several excuses that will no longer be accepted under the Air Passenger Protection Regulations..According to a consultation paper, the Agency stated that airlines must provide compensation for flight delays “except in exceptional circumstances which regulations will identify.” These exceptions need to be clearly defined for the benefit of travellers..“Circumstances that would not be considered exceptional: flight crew or cabin crew unavailability, staff shortages at the airline, technical problems that are an inherent part of normal airline operations, any situation the airline knew about or should have known about when it sold the ticket to the passenger, and any action or failure to act by the airline or others with which the airline has a contractual relationship,” wrote the Agency..“The following criteria for events to be considered exceptional are being considered: a) the event that caused the disruption must have been outside the airline’s control and not inherent to the normal exercise of the activities of the airline, and b) the event could not be avoided even if the airline took all reasonable measures to do so.”.Regulators currently have over 46,000 complaints that they still need to assess. The Agency believes that even more passengers, possibly hundreds of thousands, had valid complaints but never officially reported them..Parliament in 2019 mandated Air Passenger Protection Regulations that promised compensation of $400 for a three-hour flight delay, $900 for denial of boarding due to overbooking, up to $2,100 for lost or damaged luggage and a maximum of $25,000 in damages..The maximum penalty has never been given. Lawmakers blamed airlines and the Transportation Agency for not enforcing the rules strongly enough and not providing enough protection for consumers..“People are tired, exhausted and losing faith in institutions,” Transport Minister Omar Alghabra testified on May 18 at the Senate Transport committee. .“I take that mood extremely seriously.”.“We are proposing a new service standard,” said Alghabra. .“The service standard will not only uphold the rules, but it will ensure that airlines have a minimum treatment of their customers.”.On June 22, Parliament made changes to the Canada Transportation Act. These changes now state that airlines must resolve complaints within 30 days. Additionally, the amendments also require airlines to share information about their performance on their websites..The changes were made after many people got stranded during their Christmas vacation travels. Passengers were stranded in different parts of Canada and airports in Mexico and the Caribbean. Sunwing, one of the airlines, received 7,000 complaints from these passengers..“We failed,” Len Corrado, Sunwing president, testified on Jan. 12 at the Commons Transport committee.
