Change needed in airline complaints resolution system as backlog closes in on 100K: expert

A Porter passenger waits at Toronto Pearson Airport, on Friday, July 19 2024. A global technology outage had grounded flights, disrupted hospitals and backed up border crossings in Canada, with Toronto Pearson International Airport and Montreal - Trudeau International Airport both said the outage could lead to flight delays and cancellations. (Chris Young/The Canadian Press)

As the backlog of complaints against airlines at the Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) gets close to 100,000, calls for reform are rising.

Delays and cancellations have caused such a massive backlog at the CTA resolution office that some are simply abandoning their claims, knowing they won’t be heard for years, according to one aviation expert.

“I’m joining 95,000 other Canadians who were anxiously awaiting a decision and a review by the CTA on a complaint that’s been discounted or refused by Canadian carriers,” said aviation expert John Gradek, who lectures on supply chain and aviation at McGill University. “There’s a significant amount of angst by those 95,000 people, particularly the ones that have been waiting two and a half to three years for that hearing to take place.”

Gradek says Canadians deserve a better system to process and handle complaints, and that the aviation industry needs to recognize that they have a problem and alter operating practices and behaviours.

“Basically reduce these numbers of complaints that are either showing up at the CTA or, in my opinion, most of them aren’t showing up at the CTA because Canadians know they’re going to wait two-three years to be handled and they’ve just given up,” he said.

According to the CTA, the following are grounds for complaints for someone flying in Canada:

• A complaint has to involve a flight incident that the CTA can address, such as a flight delay.
• The air passenger actually experienced the flight incident raised in the complaint.
• The air passenger is looking for compensation, a refund, or reimbursement for expenses from the airline related to the flight incident raised in their complaint.
• The air passenger has already sent a claim to the airline in writing before submitting a complaint to the CTA, waited 30 days for the airline’s answer, and the complaint remains unresolved.
• The air passenger complaint cannot be vexatious or made in bad faith.

Gradek wants not only the complaints process to be sped up, but also actual consequences for airlines.

“As an example, there’s a administrative fee that was proposed by the Minister of Transport and by the by the regulators themselves, about 18 months ago to say that every time we have a hearing, on an activity, we’re going to charge the airline 750 bucks for us to handle it, so they’ll kind of offset our cost of handling that complaint that was rejected by the airline, and that’s still not implemented,” said Gradek.

Gradek said that the airlines’ “significant lobby effort” to ministers and regulatory agencies keeps progress from being made.

“There are administrative monetary penalties that are available to the regulators, to kind of slap the hand of carriers that continuously do not respect the regulations and how the regulation should be addressed,” he said. “That’s not being implemented as well, so there’s a number of features of the regulations that are not being implemented by either the regulators or by the Minister to basically make sure that Canadians’ rights are respected when it comes to already enacted legislation for compensation.”