Less than four hours before departure, Ryan Farrell was shocked to learn that his flight from Yellowknife to Calgary had been cancelled.
Air Canada cited “crew restrictions” and rebooked him on a plane departing 48 hours after the June 17 flight’s original departure time.
Farrell was further shocked six weeks later when he learned that his claim for compensation had been refused due to staff shortages.
“Since your Air Canada flight was delayed/cancelled due to crew limitations resulting from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our operations, the compensation you are requesting is not applicable because the delay/cancellation was caused by a security-related issue,” says the customer relations email dated July 29.
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The rejection “feels like a slap in the face,” Farrell said.
“If they don’t have replacement crew to replace, then the flight (was) canceled because they couldn’t assemble a crew, not because any other factor would have made it inherently unsafe to operate the flight,” he said in an email . .
“I think the airlines are trying to exploit a general emotional connection that people make between ‘COVID-19’ and ‘security,’ when in reality if you put their logic to the test it doesn’t hold up.”
Air Canada’s response to Farrell’s complaint was not atypical. In a Dec. 29 memo, the company instructed employees to classify flight cancellations caused by staff shortages as a “security” issue, which would exclude travelers from compensation under federal regulations. This policy remains in effect.
Canada’s passenger bill of rights, the Air Passenger Protection Regulations (APPR), requires airlines to pay up to $1,000 in compensation for cancellations or significant delays resulting from reasons within the carrier’s control when the notification arrives 14 days or less before departure. However, airlines do not have to pay if the change was necessary for safety reasons.
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The Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA), a quasi-judicial federal body, says treating staffing shortages as a safety issue violates federal rules.
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“If the crew shortage is due to the actions or inactions of the carrier, the disruption will be considered to be within the control of the carrier for the purposes of the APPR. Therefore, a disruption caused by a crew shortage shall not considered ‘necessary for safety purposes’ when it is the carrier that has caused the safety problem as a result of its own actions,” the agency said in an email.
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That position reinforces a decision made on July 8, three weeks before Farrell learned he had been denied compensation, when the CTA used nearly identical language in a dispute over a flight on a different airline. The regulatory panel’s ruling in that case emphasized the obligations of airlines with regard to advance planning “to ensure that the company has sufficient personnel available to operate the services it offers for sale.”
In the December memo, which was issued at the height of the Omicron wave of COVID-19, Air Canada said: “Effective immediately, flight cancellations due to crew are considered within the control of carrier, for safety”.
“Customers affected by these flight cancellations will still be eligible for standard treatments such as hotel accommodation, meals, etc., but will no longer be eligible for APPR claims/monetary compensation.”
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The staff directive said the position would be “temporary”. But Air Canada acknowledged in an email on July 25 that the policy “remains in place given the continued exceptional circumstances caused by variants of COVID.”
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Gabor Lukacs, president of the air passenger rights advocacy group, said Air Canada is taking advantage of a loophole in the passenger rights bill to avoid paying compensation and called on the transport regulator for stronger enforcement.
“They’re misclassifying things that are clearly not a safety issue,” he said of Canada’s largest airline, calling the policy “outrageous.”
Consumers can challenge an airline’s denial of a claim through a CTA compliance. However, the agency’s backlog exceeded 15,300 air travel complaints in May.
Lukacs also noted that European Union regulations do not exclude security reasons from situations requiring compensation in the event of cancellations or delays. Payments are only excluded as a result of “extraordinary circumstances” such as weather or political instability.
“This document, along with previous statements and behavior since the beginning of the pandemic, shows that Air Canada’s priority is clearly trying to limit the costs of flight cancellations rather than providing good service to its customers. customers,” Sylvie De Bellefeuille, a lawyer for the Quebec-based advocacy group Option consommateurs, said after reviewing a copy of the directive.
He said Air Canada aims to discourage passengers from seeking compensation in the first place. “In our view, this tactic does not demonstrate that the company cares about its customers.”
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Air Canada disagrees with this characterization.
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“Air Canada had and continues to have more employees proportional to its flight schedule compared to before the pandemic,” the company said in an emailed statement, saying it had done everything it could to prepare for hiccups operational
“Air Canada follows all public health directives as part of its safety culture, and during the Omicron outbreak last winter that affected some crew availability, we revised our policy to help customers better on their journeys with improved levels of customer service for flight cancellations related to crew struggling with COVID.”
John Gradek, head of McGill University’s aviation management program, said the transport agency is partly to blame for the “debacle” because it set looser rules than those in Europe and the United States.
“Carriers have gone to great lengths to point fingers and claim delays are beyond their control to reduce liability,” he said in an email.
© 2022 The Canadian Press