Travelers’ rights advocates accuse Air Canada of breaking federal rules by refusing to pay compensation to passengers whose flights were canceled due to understaffing.
According to the Canadian Air Passengers Bill of Rights, an airline must provide compensation of up to $1,000 “in the event of delays and cancellations in situations attributable to the carrier, but which are not necessary for reasons of safety” and if the passenger has been informed 14 days or less before the departure time.
But airlines don’t have to pay a penny if the flight is canceled for safety reasons.
In a memo issued Dec. 29, Air Canada instructed its employees to classify flights canceled due to understaffing as a “safety” issue. Customers affected by the cancellations were eligible for room and board standards, but not Charter compensation.
According to the note, this policy was to be “temporary”. However, Air Canada acknowledged in an email sent on July 25 that it “was still in place due to the continuing circumstances caused by the variants of COVID”.
The Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) says reducing understaffing to a safety issue violates federal rules. She asserts that understaffing due to “the action or inaction of the carrier” falls into the category of situations that are attributable to it.
“A disruption caused by a staff shortage cannot be considered due for safety reasons if that shortage is the result of the company’s own actions,” the agency said in an email.
In a decision released on July 8, the OTC used similar language. She called WestJet to order, stressing that the carrier had to ensure “the availability of enough staff to operate the services it offers for sale”. WestJet had tried to defend itself by acknowledging that the cancellation was attributable to it, but that it was necessary for safety reasons.
The president of the Travelers Rights press group, Gabor Lukacs, accuses Air Canada of exploiting a loophole in the Charter to avoid paying compensation to its customers. He asks the OTC to be stricter in the application of the Charter.
” [Air Canada] misinterprets things that are clearly not security issues,” he says.
Customers can appeal an airline’s decision by submitting a complaint to the CTA. However, it must examine a large number of files. In May, there were 15,300 linked to airlines.
Mr. Lukacs mentions that in the European Union, airlines cannot cite security reasons to avoid paying compensation to passengers in the event of a cancellation. Only “extraordinary circumstances” such as bad weather conditions or political instability can release companies from the obligation to pay compensation.
Sylvie Bellefeuille, president of the Option consommateurs group, says that Ar Canada’s rating shows that the airline’s priority is to limit the costs of a flight cancellation instead of providing good service to its customers.
She accuses Air Canada of trying to dissuade its customers from seeking compensation. “This tactic does not, in our view, demonstrate that the company cares about its customers. »
It goes without saying that the carrier does not share this opinion.
“Air Canada had and continues to have more employees in relation to its flight schedule compared to the period before the pandemic”, defends the company in an email. She adds that she is doing everything possible to prepare for operational glitches.
“Air Canada continues to comply with all public health guidelines. It’s in its safety culture. We have revised our policy during the wave of Omicron, which disrupted the availability of our staff, last winter, in order to better support our customers, especially during flight cancellations related to absent crew members because of COVID. »
John Gradek, a specialist in aviation management at McGill University, believes that the CTA is partly responsible for this “debacle” because it has established rules that are more flexible than in Europe or the United States. United.
“Carriers have gone to great lengths to lay blame and pretend they have no control over delays in order to reduce their liability,” he says.