airline

Thursday March 16, 2023

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday March 16, 2023

Transport Minister pledges to close passenger compensation loophole used by airlines

January 13, 2023

Transport Minister Omar Alghabra said Tuesday the federal government will close a loophole that allows airlines to deny customers compensation for cancelled flights.

The reform will come as part of an overhaul of passenger rights to be tabled in Parliament this spring, he said at a news conference.

Asked whether he would end the exemption that lets carriers reject compensation claims by citing safety issues, Alghabra answered in the affirmative.

“The short answer is yes. We are working on strengthening and clarifying the rules to ensure that we make a distinction,” he said.

“Obviously we don’t want planes to fly when it’s unsafe to do so. But there are certain things that are within the control of the airlines, and we need to have clearer rules that puts the responsibility on the airlines when it’s their responsibility.”

Alghabra’s pledge came during a news conference at Toronto’s Pearson airport Tuesday morning, where he promised an additional$75.9 million over three years to reduce the backlog of complaints at the Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA).

May 25, 2022

The money will allow the transport regulator to hire 200 more employees who can chip away at the 42,000 complaints currently filed there, he said.

“The backlog is huge.”

The announcement comes after the government topped up the agency’s funding by $11 million last year – shortly before travel chaos erupted over the summer as flight demand surged, prompting another wave of complaints.

Gabor Lukacs, president of the Air Passenger Rights advocacy group, expressed skepticism that the new cash will make a big dent in the backlog.

“The government is throwing good money after bad,” he said. “It will not improve lack of enforcement on its own.”

Alghabra hinted at other changes upcoming in a revamped passenger rights charter, including potential reforms to the regulator’s role as an investigative and enforcement body.

“We are looking at strengthening the rules, as I said, and perhaps looking at increasing the authorities that the CTA has. But I leave it up to the CTA to exercise its judgment and when and how to impose these fines,” Alghabra told reporters.

The agency has a dual mandate as a tribunal handling complaints and a regulatory authority, though advocates say it has not gone far enough to punish violations under the latter. (The Globe & Mail) 

 

Friday January 13, 2023

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday January 13, 2023

Sunwing has received 7,000 complaints about holiday travel disruptions

Sunwing Airlines has received 7,000 complaints so far from customers unhappy with the airline’s performance during a turbulent holiday travel season that saw many customers stranded abroad.

July 17, 2019

Sunwing executives told MPs on the House of Commons standing committee on transport, infrastructure and communities Thursday that the airline cancelled 67 flights between December 15 and 31, in part because of staff shortages. Sunwing president Len Corrado said the airline struggled after the federal government declined its request to hire 63 pilots as temporary foreign workers.

Members of Parliament are questioning airline executives and airport authorities on Thursday about the travel chaos that erupted during the holidays.

Hundreds of air passengers were stranded over the holiday season after airlines cancelled or delayed flights, largely due to a major storm that hit much of Canada around Christmas.

Even though the House of Commons isn’t sitting right now, MPs on the transport committee met Monday and unanimously supported calling witnesses to discuss the travel debacle.

Executives from WestJet and Air Canada also testified.

Sunwing, a smaller airline that offers flights to warm southern destinations, faced the brunt of MPs’ questions Thursday. (CBC) 

January 8, 2016

Then there was this under-reported tale from last month under the headline, “Swoop flight to New Brunswick flies back to Hamilton without stopping at destination”

People who were on a Swoop Airlines plane are telling CHCH News of a flight to New Brunswick that ended up back where it started, leaving a lot of angry passengers.

First passengers got messages from the airline saying the flight was delayed. Then after taking off three hours later than scheduled, they flew to Moncton but didn’t land, the plane turned around and flew back to Hamilton.

Swoop sent out a series of notifications, first blaming “operational delays,” then saying it was “due to weather,” then “delayed due to customs and immigration,” even though Hamilton and Moncton are both in Canada.

A passenger on the Swoop flight Justin Forshaw says, “they then said there was going to be people at Hamilton to receive you, give you travel vouchers, transport to a hotel. There was nobody there.”

May 25, 2022

The passengers say when they got back to Hamilton airport they were abandoned. There was nobody from Swoop to help them.

Passengers say the flight attendants said there would be a new flight to Moncton within 24 hours but they still haven’t heard anything. Passengers CHCH News spoke with are doubtful about receiving refunds from Swoop.

CHCH News requested an on-camera interview with Swoop, and they responded with a statement saying the airline blames the cancellation on the weather. It doesn’t explain why passengers were given those other reasons for the delays and cancellations, or why there was no one to meet them at the airport. As for refunds, it says it’s “working through reimbursements.” (CHCH) 

Thursday January 5, 2023

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday January 5, 2023

Ottawa is passing the buck on this holiday season’s air travel chaos

December 23, 2022

Over the past couple of weeks, air travellers have experienced what will likely be remembered as the most difficult Christmas travel peak in recent memory. For Canadians, it was a sad repeat of the challenges they faced last summer. While much of the chaos air travellers experienced this Christmas can be chalked up to bad weather, those travelling with Southwest Airlines and Sunwing, in particular, saw their plans upended by challenging recoveries in the days that followed.

Both airlines saw their operations turned upside down, leaving thousands of customers affected. But that is where the similarities end. The response of the respective airlines, as well as that of the senior-most transportation official in each country, couldn’t have been more different.

Southwest made the difficult but ultimately correct decision to reset their severely disrupted operations by cancelling upwards of two-thirds of their flights for much of the week following Dec. 23 to get aircraft and crew back in place. By Dec. 30, Southwest resumed near normal operations and started its recovery.

April 23, 2014

Sunwing, on the other hand, correctly, however belatedly, leased aircraft from other carriers to deal with their stranded customers but also was forced to cancel flights until February, including all its flights out of Saskatchewan. While the airline confirms that most stranded travellers have now returned to Canada, the longer-term cancellations make it clear that the airline marketed and sold flights which they did not have enough resources to operate. Where Southwest took the “short-term pain for long-term gain” approach, Sunwing decided that extending and spreading the pain well into the winter season made more sense.

While U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg appeared on virtually every major network news program, Canadian Transport Minister Omar Alghabra took to Twitter to voice his concern.

Against this backdrop of air travel chaos, several key lessons can be drawn. The first and most important lesson is to be pro-active.

Many of the issues faced by travellers were not only predictable, they were predicted. The problems travellers encountered during the summer peak became self-evident by spring yet nothing was done. With its sprawling bureaucracy, it should not be too much to expect Transport Canada to better monitor operational performance so that trends can be more easily identified and appropriately addressed. 

May 25, 2022

Mr. Alghabra spent 2022 playing catch-up rather than leading. He should be the last person in Canada surprised by anything happening at airports during his watch, yet feigning surprise or being firmly in denial, was his and his department’s modus operandi. By being pro-active, he could have helped alleviate some of the long lines at airport security and customs that plagued airports last summer and could have been in a stronger position to encourage Sunwing to repatriate its stranded customers in a more timely fashion. (Continued: The Globe and Mail) 

 

Friday December 18, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday December 18, 2020

Hold Iran accountable for Flight PS752

As this terrible year of COVID-19 lurches to a close, Canadians should remember another, entirely separate tragedy that started it off.

January 9, 2020

One hundred and seventy-six innocent people — most of them either Canadians or travelling to Canada — were slaughtered by the Iranian military on Jan. 8 when it blasted the civilian plane in which they were travelling out of the skies.

There has been no justice for the dead in the 12 months that have passed since then. There has been no justice for the families and friends they left behind. As for the duplicitous, obstructive Iranian regime that was behind this atrocity, it has refused to admit it is responsible or can be held accountable.

At the very least, the report by former federal cabinet minister Ralph Goodale that was filed with the Canadian government this week should remind everyone in this country of the crime that was committed against so many Canadians and people with ties to Canada. Goodale’s findings should convince us, too, that Canada must push relentlessly for justice.

January 10, 2020

When Iranian missiles downed Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752 in the second week of January, the entire region was on high alert. Just four hours earlier, Iran had fired missiles at American military positions in Iraq in retaliation for the Jan. 4 American air strike that had killed a senior Iranian general.

In the midst of this ongoing conflict, Flight PS752 should never have been cleared for takeoff from the airport in Iran’s capital city of Tehran. But it was, and three minutes later, it was destroyed by two Iranian missiles. Every one of the 176 people aboard that plane died, and of those victims, 55 were Canadian citizens, 30 were permanent residents of Canada and 53 were not Canadians but travelling to this country, many as students.

January 15, 2020

For three days after the downing of Flight PS752, Iran’s authoritarian leaders denied Iran’s involvement in the disaster, suggesting mechanical failure was to blame. Then, when emerging evidence exposed the falsehood of their denials, they admitted their missiles had destroyed the plane but attributed it to a “human error” committed by a single, Iranian mobile air defence operator. After that, it took the Iranians six months to turn over the downed jet’s flight recorders for outside examination.

If Goodale’s report does nothing else, it proves Iran’s leaders lied, withheld vital evidence and attempted a crass, cruel coverup. Instead of human error, Goodale uncovered “indications of incompetence, recklessness and wanton disregard for innocent human life” on the part of the Iranians.

January 8, 2020

Out of all the troubling questions that still demand answers, the Iranian government must explain why it left open its airspace for civilian flights, such as PS752, even after it had begun its missile barrage. That decision strongly suggests an attempt to conceal Iran’s aerial assault from the Americans — even if it meant using the passengers of PS752 as sacrificial lambs.

It won’t be easy to force Iran’s rulers to accept accountability for what they did. Canada must keep trying. To maintain its pressure, the federal government should, as Conservative MP Michael Chong is urging, impose sanctions on Iranian leaders and list the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization. 

In addition, aware that Iran’s own investigation of the disaster — and itself — is a sham, Canada should persuade the international community to require independent reviews of all future tragedies that involve military strikes on civilian aircraft.

As for the rest of us, the best we can do is remember the dead of PS752 and keep calling for justice. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial) 

 

Tuesday July 16, 2019

July 17, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday July 16, 2019

New air passenger protections kick in today

Airline passengers have new rights starting today, as rules from the Canada Transportation Agency that have prompted backlash from industry and consumer advocates kick in.

January 8, 2016

The Air Passenger Protection Regulations require airlines to meet certain obligations, including clear communication to passengers about their rights and timely updates for delays or cancellations. Passengers will also be compensated up to $2,400 if they’re bumped from a flight.

In addition, passengers are now entitled to a certain standard of treatment when stuck on the tarmac. People will be allowed to leave the plane in certain situations if the delays exceed three hours — though that’s twice the time the Senate committee that studied the rules recommended.

Time spent on the tarmac became a huge point of contention when two planes were stranded for up to six hours on the tarmac at the Ottawa airport in 2017 due to bad weather. The passengers were kept on board with no air conditioning, food or water.

Air Transat was fined after the CTA found the airline broke its agreement with passengers. Transportation Minister Marc Garneau used the example to illustrate why the new bill of rights — then in the Senate — should be a priority.

April 23, 2014

Lost baggage procedures have also been updated to allow for compensation of up to $2,100. There are also clearer policies for transporting musical instruments.

The regulations will apply to all flights to, from and within Canada, including connecting flights. Large airlines, those that have serviced two million passengers or more in the last two years, will have a slightly different regulatory regime than smaller airlines in some cases.

Smaller airlines, for example, will have to pay less compensation for delays or cancellations that are within the airline’s control but are not related to safety issues.

April 3, 2014

Two advocates are also challenging the tarmac delay rules, saying they violate the charter rights of some Canadians with disabilities who may not be able to sit for extended periods.

Bob Brown, a disability rights advocate who is quadriplegic, says the rules reduce the distance he can travel by air without putting his health at risk by up to 2,000 kilometres. The case is currently before the Federal Court of Appeal.

These are only some of the changes coming in. Starting in December, airlines will also have to adhere to standards about flight disruptions and seating passengers with children. Compensation for cancelled flights and delays are part of phase two of the rollout. (CBC)