Travellers line up to check their Sunwing airline flights at Cancun international airport in Cancun, Quintana Roo state, Mexico, on December 27, 2022. (Photo by Elizabeth RUIZ / AFP via Getty Images)
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A Senate transport committee meeting on Feb. 15 was told that the Canadian Transportation Agency has a record backlog of up to 38,000 air complaints.
“The Canadian Transportation Agency has reported about a 38,000-complaint backlog that they are working through,” Craig Hutton, associate assistant deputy transport minister, told the federal committee. He said that 97 percent of complaints “are resolved by facilitation.”
Transport Minister Omar Alghabra appeared before the committee and said that passengers “were left in the dark” during winter travel issues, which has resulted in “an avalanche of complaints” to the agency since the summer of 2022.
“But bad weather cannot be blamed for why travellers were not being informed about what was going on when their flights were delayed or cancelled. Nor can it explain why travellers weren’t made aware of alternative plans or the compensation they were rightfully due because their rights had been violated,” said the minister.
“The pandemic exposed weaknesses in these regulations,” and “passengers are too often being told by the airlines that they are not entitled to compensation when they really are,” said Alghabra.
The federal government plans to introduce legislation this spring to toughen passenger protection regulations, he told the committee.
“The changes we hope to make will shift the burden of proof away from passengers and onto the airlines to help reduce number of complaints. We’re also looking at strengthening regulations on lost baggage,” said the minister.
According to Blacklock’s’ Reporter, Michelle Greenshields, director general of the Canadian Transportation Agency’s Dispute Resolution Branch, told the House of Commons transport committee on Nov. 28, 2022, that it takes one year to process 15,000 complaints.
The complaints typically involve travellers seeking compensation for flight issues as allowed by the Air Passenger Protection Regulations. The committee was also told that the vast majority of Canadian don’t bother to file a complaint over lost luggage, boarding denial, or flight delays.
“The number we have found to be a reasonable approximation that we use for forecasting complaints into the future is roughly 1 in 5,000 passengers will issue a complaint,” Tom Oommen, director general of analysis at the agency, told the House committee at the Nov. 28 meeting last year.
The regulations allow compensation such as between $400 and $1,000 for flight delays or cancellations in the case of a large carrier, between $125 and $500 for the same in the case of a small carrier, and between $900 and $2,400 for denial of boarding.
Senator Leo Housakos, chair of the Senate transport committee, said the problem was not legislation, but rather the issue is enforcement.
“From what I understand, when you have thousands of complaints that aren’t being dealt with in a timely fashion, it’s not the fault of the airlines, it’s not the fault of the airport, it’s the fault of the government, and that’s why we know there is a lot of frustration amongst the Canadian public,” said Housakos.