Many airline customers across the country have their vacations ruined or their patience tested as the holiday season begins. The situation is reminiscent of last year, when the brothel was installed at the country’s airports.
• Also read: The new rules on flight cancellations and delays
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“Air Canada, the greatest joke in history,” says humorist Garihanna Jean-Louis, who knows jokes.
On a recent return flight, his two flights were more than three hours late, one of which caused him to miss his connecting flight. “The worst thing is that nobody can help you at the counter. You have to call customer service and wait for hours,” adds the Montreal-born wife of Haitian parents.
This criticism of Canada’s main airline’s customer service comes up very, very often.
“They were bad and they are still bad,” says Gabor Lukacs, who heads the country’s largest passenger rights group, Traveler Rights.
A visit to the group’s Facebook page is enough to cool any traveler’s enthusiasm given the many horror stories that can be found there.
Complaints to the Canadian Transportation Agency continue to mount and are taking more than 18 months to process. The federal agency has a backlog of 50,000 complaints, up from 45,000 in April. In March 2022 there were 13,400.
“The airlines believe they are above the law. The best way to enforce your rights is to call them in small claims court,” suggests Gabor Lukacs.
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weather and other issues
Many flights are canceled shortly before departure or depart so late that travel is no longer possible.
“Air Canada removed us from the flight just before boarding. No explanation. No help. And you can’t get them on the phone,” best-selling author Dan Gardner said in a social media post last week.
He was preparing for the “journey of a lifetime,” a visit to London with his son. They ended up sleeping on the floor of Toronto’s Pearson Airport before returning to Ottawa, unable to speak to a customer service representative.
According to FlightAware.com, this Toronto airport experienced a total of 446 delays and 73 other flights were canceled on Saturday and Sunday alone.
In Montreal, 229 flights were delayed (45%) and 45 canceled (9%) at Pierre-Elliott-Trudeau airport on the same days.
The vagaries of the weather are partly to blame, although Nav Canada, the country’s air traffic controller, was singled out by airports due to staff shortages, which would have caused major concern.
“It’s true that shifts were tight, but Nav Can is responsible for only a very small fraction of the delays,” said Jonathan Bagg, director at Nav Canada.
Currently, the situation is not as bad as it was in 2022, when Canadian airports were among the most congested in the world.
For the same weekend in 2022 (June 25-26) in Montreal, 59% of flights were delayed and 12% were cancelled.
“Last year it was the airlines that planned more flights than the airports could technically accommodate,” warns Gabor Lukacs.
Damage payment
- · If your flight is delayed for more than three hours, you are entitled to compensation or a free rebooking on another flight.
- · The carrier cannot invoke reasons beyond its control to refuse compensation.
- · Regardless of whether it is a delay of more than three hours or a cancellation, the carrier must provide an alternative route within 48 hours.
- · Otherwise, he must give you a full refund (not in the form of vouchers) within 30 days.
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