Holiday-season travel mayhem puts passenger rights in spotlight

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This article was published 27/12/2022 (631 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

More than a week of flight delays and cancellations in which thousands of Canadians stranded on vacation or, in some cases, unable to leave home could prove to be a critical test of air passenger-rights legislation.

Rachel Foidart and her husband were gearing up to take their children on a surprise vacation to Cayo Coco in Cuba on Christmas Eve.

But the planned getaway for some sun and fun turned into a frustrating odyssey played out over several days that kept them home and left them with questions about getting back the $7,000 they spent with Sunwing Vacations.

At 11:34 p.m. last Thursday, Foidart received a text from Sunwing, saying their flight the following afternoon had been rescheduled to Sunday, citing “delay due to crew can no longer be utilized for departure.”

Three delays and several rescheduled flights later, Foidart and family headed to the airport for a 7 a.m. flight only to learn it had been cancelled altogether.

“An airport (worker) came to see us and he had no further information than what we had,” she said.

As of Wednesday afternoon Sunwing’s air passenger rights web page states that claims for flights from Dec. 18 onwards “​​are unable to be processed at this time due to operational challenges.”

Foidart and her family wonder whether they’ll get back everything they spent. With no email confirmation, the only evidence she has is a recorded phone call with a customer-service rep.

“That’s like going to a store and saying, ‘Yeah we’ll give you a refund’ but not having a receipt for that,” she said.

On Sept. 8, amendments of the Air Passenger Protection Regulations pertaining to refund rights went into force. Under the new legislation, if a flight cancellation or delay of three hours or more is outside the airline’s control and a new reservation cannot be confirmed within 48 hours of the passenger’s original departure time, the airline must provide a refund or arrange alternate travel to the passenger, free of charge.

Gabór Lukács, the founder of the Air Passenger Rights advocacy group, believes the legislation is misleading.

“They put out something which actually creates more confusion because it introduces a restriction of 48 hours for the right to refund,” Lukács said.

Lukács said passengers seeking a refund may seek assistance from credit card companies or going to small claims court to get their money back. A backlog of 30,000 complaints to the Canadian Transportation Agency reflects a lack of accountability, he said.

“The government can fine airlines up to $25,000 per passenger per incident,” Lukács said. “It doesn’t happen. The government has been derelict at its obligation to enforce passenger rights.”

He advises Sunwing travellers to be cautious of accepting partial refunds. Doing so could absolve the airline of its responsibility to cover the costs of alternative transportation.

For now, he said he’s hoping passenger frustrations will push the federal government toward holding airlines more accountable.

“I hope that there will be maybe enough political outrage, political will and public outrage to create change,” he said.

fpcity@freepress.mb.ca