Airlines lose bid to skirt some of Canada’s air passenger rights rules

Airlines indispensable compensate travellers for planetary formation disruptions based connected the Canadian Transportation Agency’s rules, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled successful a landmark determination for aerial passengers.

The determination released Friday upholds Canada’s Air Passenger Protection Regulations (APPR) aft a radical of airlines appealed to person them declared invalid for planetary flights.

At the bosom of the lawsuit was whether Canada’s rider rights charter, enacted successful 2019, could basal alongside rules acceptable retired successful the Montreal Convention, the planetary modular signed by Canada successful 2001.

While the APPR sets retired a standardized compensation strategy for delays and cancellations and mislaid baggage erstwhile the factors are wrong the airline’s power oregon for information reasons, the Montreal Convention takes a much individualized approach.

According to that standard, a rider tin effort to reason successful tribunal that they were wronged and if palmy person compensation accordingly.

That was challenged by a radical of airlines that included Air Canada, Porter Airlines and planetary carriers specified arsenic Lufthansa and Air France.

These airlines argued that the APPR widen beyond the Canadian Transportation Agency’s powers and were inconsistent with the rules acceptable retired successful the Montreal Convention. The CTA and lawyer wide argued determination is nary clash betwixt rider protections and the Montreal Convention.

The Federal Court of Appeal dismissed the airlines’ situation successful precocious 2023 and the lawsuit was heard by the Supreme Court successful March of this year.

On Friday, the Supreme Court stated successful a determination written by Justice Malcolm Rowe that the regulations “do not struggle with the Montreal Convention.”

Under the national rules, passengers indispensable beryllium compensated with up to $2,400 if they were denied boarding due to the fact that a travel was overbooked — alleged formation bumping.

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Delays and different payments for cancelled flights warrant compensation of up to $1,000.

Travellers tin person up to astir $2,300 for mislaid oregon damaged baggage, though the nonstop fig fluctuates based connected speech rates.

Since the rules came into unit 5 years ago, the authorities has taken further steps to tighten them, a determination prompted by scenes of airdrome chaos, endless information lines and overflowing baggage halls successful 2022.

In 2023, the authorities amended the instrumentality to adjacent loopholes that person allowed airlines to debar paying customers compensation and worked to found a much streamlined complaints solution system.

The caller provisions besides sought to ratchet up penalties via a $250,000 maximum good for hose violations — a tenfold summation implicit the erstwhile regulations — successful an effort to promote compliance.

Another amendment — some are yet to instrumentality effect — would spot the regulatory outgo of complaints connected carriers’ shoulders. The measure, which would outgo airlines $790 per ailment nether a caller connection from the regulator, aims to promote them to brushwood up their work and frankincense trim the fig of grievances against them.

Meanwhile, the complaints backlog astatine the country’s transport regulator continues to mount, lasting astatine astir 78,000 arsenic of past month.

— with files from the Canadian Press