If airline passengers were ballplayers, they’d have a batting average worthy of an all-star.
An analysis of new data by the CBC finds that one-half of all airline pax disputes resolved by the Canadian Transportation Agency have resulted in wins for passengers.
The news agency looked at nearly 10,000 cases resolved by the CTA between 30SEP 2023 and 30JUN 2024 and found that airlines were ordered to compensate or refund pax 50% of the time.
Airlines were ordered to pay compensation for flight disruptions in nearly three-quarters of the rulings favouring pax. In the rest, carriers had to reimburse customers for added expenses or refund flights, the CBC said.
In each case, CTA officials ruled after the airline denied a passenger's claim and after the airline and complaining pax failed to resolve the dispute.
Using the published figures, roughly 5,000 CTA complaints resulted in customer wins in the period studied. If the average refund or compensation payment were $500, that would equate to $2.5 million in payments.
"Half of [the passengers] were right, that they should have been paid and the airlines were wrong," John Gradek, lecturer and co-ordinator of the aviation management program at McGill University, told the CBC.
He also said airlines "are playing a little fast and loose" with compensation rules.
In April of this year, Open Jaw reported that more than 71,000 complaints are on file with the CTA, the largest number ever. Last year, the federal government announced it would spend some $76 million and hire 200 new employees to help deal with the growing number of complaints.
The CTA has dealt with a backlog of air passenger protests since new regulations were introduced in 2019.
Those regulations require an airline to compensate pax when a flight is delayed or cancelled for a reason that is within the airline's control. Passengers who believe they've been unfairly denied compensation by an airline can take their case to the CTA.
