The unpleasant side of traveling

For many vacationers, summer means air travel and hassle-free relaxation. But as recent news has reminded us, the unexpected can happen – like the WestJet strike or the hurricane Beryl in the Caribbean – which disrupts plans and causes expenses.

This is where we realize the importance of insurance and the advantages of going through a travel agent, even for a simple plane ticket. We also see how difficult it is to know if we are entitled to a refund or compensation and who to turn to to get what is due to us.

Should you contact the airline, your credit card issuer, your insurer, the Fonds d’indemnisation des clients des agents de voyages (FICAV) or file a complaint with the Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA)? Short answer: it depends on the scenario, and claims processes take a long time.

Now that he’s back in Montreal, Étienne Denis will have to figure out what his options are after being stuck on the other side of the country. He was enjoying the beautiful scenery of Kelowna, British Columbia, with his girlfriend and children when WestJet mechanics went on strike on June 28. The family was supposed to return home three days later. However, the second leg of their flight with a stopover in Edmonton was cancelled.

Looking for a solution to return to Quebec, his partner tried to contact WestJet. After waiting more than 9 hours on the line for nothing, she hung up.

The next day, the family showed up at the airport to speak to the airline staff.

“They were completely unprepared to handle this crisis. It was completely dysfunctional,” says Étienne Denis. “The employee told us to call WestJet. She couldn’t do anything.” He then resigned himself to paying $3,000 to fly home on Air Canada a few days later. He’s keeping his fingers crossed that he’ll get some of the money back.

In total, 1,171 flights were cancelled by WestJet, including 30 on Wednesday and 8 again on Thursday, even though the strike ended on Tuesday.

In Canada, strikes are considered to be situations beyond the control of airlines, such as a snowstorm. The Air Passenger Protection Regulations applied by the CTA therefore do not provide for any compensation. A carrier that cancels a flight must, however, reimburse its customers. Accommodation and living expenses are paid by some travel insurance policies when a return home occurs later than expected. Read your contract carefully.

In Europe, the issue of strikes is less clear-cut. In France, where this type of event is quite frequent, it is considered that airlines are generally able to avoid flight cancellations since they are warned of work stoppages.¹.

If you are travelling within the European Union, do not hesitate to claim compensation, even for a controversial reason, the amounts provided are high.

As for the sometimes arduous search for a flight home and the hours spent on the phone trying to reach the customer service of an overwhelmed airline, Moscou Côté reminds us that all of this can easily be avoided. “When you do business with a travel agent, you can reach them in two minutes!” says the chairman of the board of the Association des agence de voyages du Québec (AAVQ) and general manager of Voyages Constellation.

Over time, travelers have become accustomed to buying tickets from carriers, sometimes losing sight of the advantages of using an agent. The latter has the obligation to assist his client in the event of a flight cancellation or missed connection. Moscow Side swears that the prices are not higher.

After the strike, the hurricane. Earlier this week, Air Transat sent three planes to Jamaica to repatriate its customers who were preparing to endure the rain and violent winds of the storm. BerylTheir vacation was cut short, but again, no refund is provided as the carrier has no control over the weather.

“What would the alternative have been? To stay locked in your hotel room for two or three days, with the restaurants closed, and wait for the egg sandwich that they’re going to bring you in a cardboard box with a bottle of water? The alternative is not really any better,” believes Moscow Côté. That said, some insurance policies protect travelers against trip interruption.

For those who would like to cancel a departure to Mexico planned in the coming days because of Berylthe expert suggests waiting for the carrier to decide, which would result in a refund. That said, he compares a hurricane to a good big snowstorm.

The disruptions caused by the strike and the hurricane are a reminder that Ottawa has been working on improving the rules to protect air passengers for more than a year. “We were promised a new version, but there is no sound, no image. There seems to be a lot of lobbying from the carriers,” laments Jacob Charbonneau, CEO and co-founder of Vols en tard, a company that helps travellers claim what is owed to them.

In particular, it was planned to eliminate exemptions based on broad categories of disturbance.^⁠2 such as “disruption beyond the control of air carriers”, often cited as a reason not to compensate travelers.

Not to mention that the simplification of the complaints resolution process in effect since September 30 does not seem to be producing the expected results. The pile of complaints continues to grow at a desperate rate. Since last fall, it has gone from 61,000 files to 72,000. Travellers can therefore wait up to four years before their disputes are resolved, according to Radio-Canada.^⁠3.

With this depressing data, I wish you a trouble-free vacation.

1. Consult the page “Air travel: your rights in the event of problems” on the website of the European Consumer Centre

2. Read the article “Ottawa wants to make compensation for air passengers mandatory” on the Radio-Canada website

3. Read the article “The overhaul of the rules governing compensation for air passengers is long overdue” on the Radio-Canada website