Air Canada uses staff shortage as reason to deny passenger compensation claims for canceled flights

MONTREAL – Less than four hours before departure, Ryan Farrell was shocked to learn that his flight from Yellowknife to Calgary had been cancelled.

Air Canada cited “crew restrictions” and booked him on a plane that would depart 48 hours after the flight’s original takeoff time of June 17.

Farrell was even more shocked six weeks later when he learned that his compensation request had been denied due to staffing shortages.

“Since your Air Canada flight was delayed/cancelled due to crew restrictions as a result of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our operations, the compensation you are requesting does not apply because the delay/cancellation was due to an issue security related. reads the customer relations email dated July 29.

Rejection “feels like a slap in the face,” Farrell said.

“If they don’t have a replacement crew to fill in, then the flight (was) canceled because they couldn’t get a crew together, not because any other factor would have made the flight inherently unsafe,” he said in an email. .

“I think the airlines are trying to exploit a general emotional connection that people make between ‘COVID-19’ and ‘safety,’ when really, if you test their logic, it doesn’t hold up.”

Air Canada’s response to Farrell’s complaint was not atypical. In a Dec. 29 memo, the company instructed employees to classify flight cancellations caused by staffing shortages as a “safety” issue, which would exclude travelers from compensation under federal regulations. That policy is still in effect.

Canada’s passenger bill of rights, Air Passenger Protection Regulations (APPR), requires airlines to pay up to $1,000 in compensation for cancellations or significant delays that result from reasons within the carrier’s control when notice reaches 14 days or less before departure. However, airlines do not have to pay if the change was required for security reasons.

The Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA), a federal quasi-judicial agency, says treating staffing shortages as a safety issue violates federal regulations.

“If the crew shortage is due to actions or inactions of the carrier, the disruption will be considered within the control of the carrier for the purposes of the APPR. Therefore, an outage caused by crew shortage should not be considered ‘safety required’ when it is the carrier that caused the safety issue as a result of their own actions,” the agency said in an email.

That stance reinforces a decision made on July 8, three weeks before Farrell learned he had been denied compensation, when the CTA used nearly identical language in a dispute over a flight on a different carrier. The regulatory panel’s ruling in that case emphasized airlines’ obligations around planning ahead “to ensure the airline has sufficient staff available to operate the services it offers for sale.”

In the December memo, which was issued at the height of Omicron’s COVID-19 wave, Air Canada said: “Effective immediately, flight cancellations due to crew are considered within the control of the carrier, for safety reasons.” ”.

“Customers affected by these flight cancellations will still be eligible for standard treatments, such as hotel accommodations, meals, etc., but will no longer be eligible for APPR/monetary compensation claims.”

The staff directive said the position would be “temporary.” But Air Canada acknowledged in an email on July 25 that the policy “remains in place given the continuing exceptional circumstances brought about by variants of COVID.”

Gabor Lukacs, president of the air passenger rights advocacy group, said Air Canada is violating the passenger bill of rights and called on the transport regulator for stricter enforcement.

“They are misclassifying things that are clearly not a security issue,” he said of Canada’s largest airline, calling the policy “egregious” and “illegal”.

Consumers can dispute an airline’s claim denial by filing a complaint with the CTA. However, the agency’s backlog exceeded 15,300 air travel complaints through May.

Lukacs also pointed out that European Union regulations do not exclude security reasons from situations that require compensation in the event of cancellations or delays. Payments are excluded only as a result of “extraordinary circumstances” such as weather or political instability.

“This document, coupled with previous statements and behavior since the start of the pandemic, shows that Air Canada’s priority is clearly trying to limit the costs of flight cancellations rather than providing good service to its customers.” Sylvie De Bellefeuille, a lawyer with the Quebec-based advocacy group Option consommateurs, said after reviewing a copy of the directive.

She said Air Canada aims to discourage passengers from seeking compensation in the first place. “This tactic, in our opinion, does not show that the company cares about its customers.”

Air Canada disagrees with that characterization.

“Air Canada had and continues to have more employees in proportion to its flight schedule compared to before the pandemic,” the company said in an emailed statement, indicating it had done everything it could to prepare for operational setbacks.

“Air Canada follows all public health directives as part of its safety culture, and during the wave of Omicron last winter that affected the availability of some crews, we revised our policy to better help customers on their trips with better standards. customer service for crew-related flight cancellations dealing with COVID.”

John Gradek, director of the aviation management program at McGill University, said the transportation agency is partly responsible for the “debacle” because it has made rules more flexible than those in Europe and the United States.

“Carriers have been going to great lengths to point fingers and claim delays are out of their control to reduce liability,” he said in an email.

This report from The Canadian Press was first published on August 7, 2022.