OTTAWA — The Liberal government is overhauling Trudeau-era air passenger rights rules it now admits are largely toothless. Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon announced Friday at Ottawa Macdonald–Cartier International Airport that he is taking action to clear an “unacceptable” backlog of nearly 100,000 passenger complaints.
New Measures Announced
MacKinnon said the government will quadruple the maximum fine for airlines found to have repeatedly violated passenger rights, from $250,000 to $1 million. He added that the government will outsource passenger complaints to a private sector adjudicator, noting that it can take more than a year for the Canadian Transportation Agency to resolve disputes under the current system. MacKinnon also announced the elimination of a federal gag order prohibiting travellers from publicly discussing their complaints.
Criticism from Advocates
Gábor Lukács, head of Air Passenger Rights (Canada), says that COVID had nothing to do with the regulations’ shortcomings. “Mr. MacKinnon may wish to refresh his memory. APPR 1.0 was designed in 2017-2019, well before COVID. The APPR was a failure by design,” said Lukács. He added that his group warned about loopholes in the regulations as far back as 2017.
Lukács said a loophole allowing airlines to claim delays were “required for safety reasons” is in critical need of tightening. He noted that a Transport Canada official recently admitted in sworn testimony that it takes roughly a day for adjudicators to vet the “safety reasons” excuse. Lukács called the privatization of adjudication a “PR stunt.” “If the rules are simple, then they can be applied effectively by public employees,” said Lukács.
Background
Canada’s existing Air Passenger Protection Regulations (APPR) were developed under the Trudeau government, coming into force in 2019. MacKinnon told reporters that COVID was partly to blame for the failure of Trudeau-era air passenger protections. “We put in place a system that, in hindsight, was onerous, expensive, took too long. It must be said, and to be fair, the system was implemented during a pandemic, which certainly did not help,” said MacKinnon. He didn’t address why a subsequent 2023 initiative to impose a fee on airlines when passengers lodged complaints fell by the wayside.
