The biggest strain to hit Canadian airlines this year, as people started to travel again, was nothing compared to this past week of holiday-season chaos.
Canceled flights, endless queues, mountains of missing luggage and passengers stranded for days seem to be the norm at most major airports across the country. Many are wondering: with all the chaos airports have experienced over the past year, why couldn’t there have been more pre-emptive planning?
Gabor Lukacs is President of Air Passenger Rights, a nonprofit group that educates and advocates for air travelers. He says what is currently happening at airports like the one in Vancouver is poor organization on the part of the airlines, along with poor weather conditions.
“It’s obvious that with the current weather in British Columbia and Toronto, planes can’t take off and can’t land, it’s a safety issue,” he told Yahoo Canada News.
It’s different when people are stuck on the tarmac for 10 or 12 hours, that’s bad planning because the airline shouldn’t have boarded a flight that didn’t have a clear exit plan if they can’t take off. Gabor Lukacs, President of the non-profit group Air Passenger Rights
While canceled flights due to weather conditions are reasonable, it becomes questionable when some airlines cancel flights to certain destinations while others continue to fly.
“It’s not like airlines have such capabilities that one airline would be forced to cancel and others wouldn’t,” he says. “If that’s not possible, it’s under the carrier’s control and not the weather.”
Lukacs says that if, based on the solid methodological information available, it becomes clear that there is no reasonable hope that the flights will take off or land, those flights should not be presented to the public as if they are still planned.
“This means that passengers will be at the airport and no longer comfortably at home,” he says.
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Aside from tarmac delays, another major airline problem Lukacs sees frequently is a failure to rebook passengers. According to passenger protection regulations, if a flight is canceled due to weather or other circumstances beyond the airline’s control, the airline must provide passengers with the opportunity to book the next available flight. If they cannot find a flight in their own network, the airline will have to buy the passenger a ticket from another airline, if one is available.
“I expect both airlines (Air Canada and Westjet) will fight this provision to some extent,” Lukacs says. “The latest question is how will the government respond?”
Under the law, the airline can be fined up to $25,000 per incident per passenger. But whether that will happen remains to be seen.
“Passenger rights are on the books but they are not enforced and that is a particular concern,” he says.
While passengers can be compensated for lost luggage, it is against the law not to offer them alternative transportation when options are available.
Lukacs isn’t confident the Canadian Transportation Agency will hold airlines accountable as “they treat airlines as untouchable, like they’re above the law.” He adds that there’s no real evidence airports are doing anything wrong in the current holiday chaos. Tasks such as refueling are also carried out by subcontractors from the airport.
“Airlines love to point fingers at other players, but I don’t see any evidence of that here,” he says. “For delayed passengers it may seem like the airport is to blame, but in fact for the vast majority of these functions it is the airlines’ subcontractors and therefore the responsibility lies with the airline.”