(OTTAWA) Sunwing was criticized Thursday by Transport Minister Omar Alghabra and Aéroports de Montreal President and CEO Philippe Rainville for stranding passengers during the holiday season in Mexico. The airline’s president, Len Corrado, meanwhile apologized before blaming the weather, pilot shortages and poor infrastructure at the airports.
Posted 10:29am Updated 4:05pm
Minister Alghabra accused Sunwing of violating “the rights” of passengers during his testimony before a parliamentary committee on Thursday afternoon. Opposition MPs criticized him for not speaking to the airline’s president at the height of the crisis.
Sunwing’s lack of communication with its passengers is “unacceptable,” according to Aéroports de Montréal CEO Philippe Rainville. He called for an action plan for the airline to rectify the situation ahead of the next busy period during spring break.
Both men answered questions from MPs on the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities on Thursday afternoon. Earlier in the day, Sunwing, Air Canada and WestJet all had to declare their failures after the winter storm that battered the east and west of the country before Christmas.
“Let me begin by apologizing for not providing the level of service that Canadians have come to expect,” said Sunwing President Len Corrado.
He then said that after two years of the pandemic, Sunwing hopes for a return to normal during the holiday season and that a plan has been drawn up to meet demand for travel to sunny destinations. “While many of our clients have been able to enjoy their holiday undisturbed, we have had some execution difficulties for which we are very, very sorry,” he added.
Hundreds of travelers have been stranded in Mexico over the holiday season after Sunwing canceled their return flight without giving them any information on when they could return home.
According to Mr. Corrado, these outages can be explained by three reasons: the winter storms that battered many airports across the country – including Vancouver’s, which had to close entirely – the difficulty in finding pilots and the lack of infrastructure at some airports that led to further delays. The one in Vancouver ran out of plane deicing fluid in the middle of the storm, while the baggage carousel at Toronto’s Pearson Airport broke down.
Air Canada and WestJet officials also blamed “extreme weather” for the delays their passengers experienced during the holiday season. “On December 23, Canada’s busiest travel day of the year, severe weather warnings were issued in all but one province,” said Andrew Gibbons, WestJet’s vice president of foreign affairs. It’s not a normal Canadian winter. »
The NDP wants a new law
The treatment of travelers by airlines during the Christmas holidays has shown yet again that the charter is not working to protect them, according to NDP MP Taylor Bachrach.
British Columbia’s elected representative wants to pressure Transport Minister Omar Alghabra to introduce legislation to pass the same protections regime for air travelers as the European Union. Passengers should be compensated automatically instead of having to apply for it.
PHOTO JUSTIN TANG, THE CANADIAN PRESS ARCHIVE
Omar Algabra
“The reality is that the most basic expectations of customer service have not been met,” Bachrach said. Minister Alghabra said he should have “used the powers conferred on him by law to force airlines to perform better” rather than remain “on the players’ bench”.
He urged the minister to quickly introduce new, more restrictive legislation so that “financial compensation payments become the norm, not the exception” and put “passenger rights ahead of big airlines’ profits”.
Minister Alghabra has pledged to strengthen passenger protection regulations so that the burden is on the shoulders of airlines and not their customers.
This Travelers Charter, which has been in effect since 2019, provides for compensation of up to USD 1,000 in the event of a flight delay or cancellation for which the airlines are responsible. They are also required to update their flight status every 30 minutes until a new departure time is established.
Since September, airlines have also been required to provide a refund or offer a new reservation, at the passenger’s option, if a flight is canceled or delayed due to a situation beyond their control, such as a flight delay. B. the storm in December. .
However, the number of complaints to the Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) has since exploded, topping 33,000 on Jan. 4.
“There is no system of protection in the world that would require airlines to be held liable for monetary compensation in the event of force majeure,” said David Rheault, Air Canada’s vice president of government relations.
Airlines also believe their burden should be shared with other players in their industry, such as airport authorities and Nav Canada, who control air traffic, who are also sometimes responsible for passenger delays.