In an announcement 14MAR at YYZ, the minister of transport announced that the federal government will provide another $76 million to the Canadian Transport Agency (CTA) to help clear the backlog of passenger complaints against airlines. Plus, he hinted at new rules to come that will push airlines to keep complaints from reaching the CTA at all.
Omar Alghabra acknowledged that a “huge” backlog of over 42,000 complaints is waiting to be processed by the CTA. The record backlog has built up as a result of “unprecedented” and “unacceptable” issues in air operations throughout Canada beginning last summer.
The new funding will be allocated over the next three years, boosting the CTA’s budget by over $25million annually. That’s on top of a budget boost the quasi-judicial, independent body was given by the government last fall as complaints piled up.
Alghabra said that the new funding would allow the CTA to hire 200 new employees who would focus “exclusively” on processing complaints.
In addition to the new funding, the minister added that the CTA will be implementing a “package of reforms” so they can “process complaints quickly and efficiently.”
Furthermore, the minister of transport said the government would be “tabling new rules this spring” tackling the “asymmetry of power” that airlines have over passengers in the complaints process.
He pointed out that, as the system currently stands, pax must first lodge a complaint or a claim with the airline, and only when and if they feel they have not achieved the results they are entitled to, can they lodge a complaint with the CTA - which then takes months to process.
Alghabra said that upcoming new rules would create “incentives” for airlines to deal with complaints themselves, rather than “defer” to the CTA, with “disincentives” for an airline to wait for the complaint to make its way through the CTA process.
