Even before the federal workers strike, the Canadian Transportation Agency was taking 18 months on average to process air passenger complaints, as Open Jaw has reported.
With a backlog of over 45,000 complaints, earlier this year the federal government gave the CTA nearly $80-million over three years to hire more workers to clear the backlog and speed up the resolution timeline.
Since that time, according to the Globe, the CTA has hired 100 new workers to meet those goals.
But now, with 155,000 federal workers who are members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) on strike since 19APR, passengers could be waiting even longer than 18 months for their complaints against airlines for compensation for excessively delayed or cancelled flights, reports the Globe.
As Open Jaw has reported, the CTA is one of several federal agencies and departments whose work has an impact on travel in Canada, and before the strike was declared, the agency said it expected that any PSAC job action would result in delays in processing complaints.
As of 24APR, the CTA confirmed that prediction with a spokesperson for the CTA telling the Globe that half of its 327 workers are involved in the PSAC labour action, and half of those on strike - 71 CTA employees - "work directly on processing air passenger complaints."
Apparently it's still continuing to receive pax complaints, “but their processing will be delayed due to the labour situation affecting administrative support necessary to carry out those functions.”
