The Liberal government's proposed updates to air passenger protection rules will provide automatic compensation for delayed or cancelled flights, Transport Minister Omar Alghabra confirmed to the media 24APR.
As Open Jaw reported earlier on 24APR, newly-tabled legislation fulfills a promise by the minister to tighten existing rules - which were updated as recently as 2022 - following months of air industry chaos and a record-high backlog of air passenger complaints.
As previously reported, new provisions in the bill increase penalties on airlines to 10X previous maximum fines. Under the terms of the newly-tabled legislation, airlines can now be fined up to $250,000 for violations. Airlines will have to have a process to deal with pax complaints within 30 days and can no longer claim to be exempted from compensation for 'safety' reasons.
The Transport Minister provided new details of the proposed legislation Monday, as Reuters reports.
The new rules see the onus shift to airlines to compensate pax for delays or cancellations except under very few circumstances, like snowstorms.
"It will no longer be the passenger who will have to prove that he or she is entitled to compensation. It will now be the airline that will need to prove that it does not have to pay for it," Alghabra told media.
"This means there will be no more loopholes where airlines can claim a disruption is caused by something outside of their control or a security reason when it is not," Alghabra said.
In addition, the proposed new rules will mean airlines could be charged fees if a pax complaint remains unresolved and ends up at the CTA for resolution. That cost was designed to incentivize airlines to resolve passenger complaints themselves, quickly, rather than defer the process to the CTA, which critics have said has resulted in long wait times and many passengers giving up on complaints, to the benefit of airlines.
Loopholes in lost and delayed baggage claims are also part of the new legislation, which has not yet passed into law.
The proposed new rules come much closer to European passenger rights laws, and have met many of the demands of passenger rights' advocates. However, as Open Jaw reported, the National Airlines Council of Canada says that increases in costs to airlines as a result of the new legislation could lead to increases in fares for all air travellers.
On his part, the Transport Minister denies that the updates to the Air Passenger 'Bill of Rights' is intended to "demonize" airlines.
