Less than four hours before departure, Ryan Farrell was surprised to learn that his flight from Yellowknife to Calgary had been cancelled.
Air Canada cited “crew constraints” and rebooked him on a flight departing 48 hours after the flight’s original June 17 departure time.
Farrell was even more surprised six weeks later to learn that his claim for compensation had been rejected on the grounds of staff shortages.
“Since your Air Canada flight was delayed/cancelled due to crew restrictions as a result of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our operations, the compensation you are seeking does not apply because the delay/cancellation was caused by an issue related to safety,” reads the July 29 email from Customer Relations.
The rejection “feels like a slap in the face,” Farrell said.
“If they don’t have a replacement crew to replace, then the flight (was) canceled because they were unable to assemble a crew, not because any other factor would have made it inherently unsafe to operate the flight,” he said in an email.
“I think the airlines are trying to exploit the general emotional connection people make between ‘COVID-19’ and ‘safety’, when in reality, if you put their logic to the test, it doesn’t hold up.”
Air Canada’s response to Farrell’s complaint was no different. In a Dec. 29 memo, the company instructed officials to classify flight cancellations caused by staff shortages as a “safety” issue, which would exclude travelers from compensation under federal regulations. This policy remains in effect.
Canada’s passenger charter, the Air Passenger Protection Regulations (APPR), requires airlines to pay up to $1,000 in compensation for cancellations or significant delays resulting from causes within the carrier’s control when notice is given 14 days or less before departure. However, airlines do not have to pay if the change was necessary for safety reasons.
The Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA), a quasi-judicial federal agency, says treating the staffing shortage as a safety issue violates federal rules.
“If the crew shortage is due to the carrier’s actions or inactions, the disruption will be considered the carrier’s control for APPR purposes. Therefore, a disruption caused by a crew shortage should not be considered “necessary for safety purposes” when the carrier caused the safety problem as a result of its own actions, the agency said in an email.
That position reinforces a decision made July 8 — three weeks before Farrell learned he was denied compensation — when the CTA used nearly identical language in a dispute over a flight on a different airline. The regulatory panel’s decision in this case emphasized airlines’ pre-planning obligations “to ensure that the carrier has sufficient staff available to operate the services it offers for sale.”
In the December memo, which was issued at the height of the Omicron wave of COVID-19, Air Canada said: “Effective immediately, canceled flights due to crew are considered carrier control – for safety.”
“Customers affected by these canceled flights will continue to be eligible for standard treatment such as hotel accommodation, meals etc. but will no longer be eligible for APPR claims/cash compensation.”
The staff directive says the position will be “temporary.” But Air Canada acknowledged in a July 25 email that the policy “remains in place given the ongoing emergency circumstances brought about by variants of COVID.”
Gabor Lukacs, president of the air passenger rights group, said Air Canada was “illegally” using the passenger charter to avoid paying compensation and called on the transportation regulator for tougher enforcement.
“They’re misclassifying things that are clearly not a safety issue,” he said of Canada’s largest airline, calling the policy “reckless.”
Consumers may challenge an airline’s denial of a claim by appealing to the CTA. However, the agency’s backlog of complaints exceeded 15,300 air trips as of May.
Lukacs also noted that European Union regulations do not exclude safety considerations from situations requiring compensation in the event of cancellation or delay. Payments are only excluded as a result of “extraordinary circumstances”, such as weather or political instability.
“This document, along with previous statements and behavior since the beginning of the pandemic, shows that Air Canada’s priority is clearly to try to limit the cost of flight cancellations, rather than to provide good service to its customers,” Sylvie De Belfoye , a lawyer with the Quebec-based advocacy group Option consommateurs, said after reviewing a copy of the directive.
She said Air Canada aims to deter passengers from seeking compensation in the first place. “In our view, this tactic does not demonstrate that the company cares about its customers.”
Air Canada disagrees with this characterization.
“Air Canada had, and continues to have, more employees proportional to its flight schedule compared to before the pandemic,” the company said in an emailed statement, noting that it had done everything it could to prepare for operational issues.
“Air Canada follows all public health directives as part of its safety culture, and during the Omicron wave last winter, which affected some crew availability, we revised our policy to better support customers on their increased travel levels of customer care on canceled flights related to crews dealing with COVID.”
John Gradek, head of McGill University’s aviation management program, said the transportation agency was partly responsible for the “failure” because it had established looser rules than those in Europe and the United States.
“Carriers go to great lengths to point fingers and claim delays are beyond their control to minimize liability,” he said in an email.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on August 7, 2022.
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