The Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) is asking for feedback from Canadian travellers on proposed changes to the country's Air Passenger Protection Regulations that promise to "clarify, simplify and strengthen" the rules.
The agency laid out the proposed changes yesterday, after the Liberal government last month passed legislation to toughen penalties on airlines, simplify the complaint process and close loopholes that have allowed carriers to escape paying compensation
The consultation period will be open for 30 calendar days through August 10. After considering the feedback and comments received, the CTA will publish draft regulations in Canada Gazette Part I. There will then be an opportunity to review and comment on the draft regulations before they are finalized, approved by the CTA and Cabinet, and published in Canada Gazette II. The new rules are expected to come into effect at some point in the coming winter.
"The Canadian Transportation Agency welcomes the opportunity to improve the air passenger protection regime," CTA chair and chief executive France Pégeot said in a statement.
"We are committed to improving how air passenger complaints are processed and to provide better services to Canadians."
Airport flight status board. (Photo via phive2015 / iStock / Getty Images Plus)
Currently, three categories are used to determine how much compensation passengers are entitled to, based on whether the disruption was within an airline's control, within an airline's control but required for safety, or outside an airline's control.
Passenger rights advocates have been critical, particularly about the safety category, which they argue provides airlines with a potential loophole to avoid compensation.
Among the changes in the proposed rules would be an elimination of those three categories, although the new regulations will include an exception for "exceptional circumstances."
Airlines will have to provide compensation for inconvenience to passengers when there is a flight disruption, unless there are exceptional circumstances, and airlines will have the burden to prove the situation is an exceptional circumstance. One objective of the consultations is to define these exceptions.
In addition, as a result of the legislative changes and to take into account lessons learned since the coming into force of the APPR in 2019, the CTA is proposing other regulatory amendments
These include amendments to assistance (standards of treatment) and communication requirements, and the defining of passenger entitlements that would apply in the case of all flight disruptions, and separately those that would apply for exceptional circumstances. Further details can be found in the Consultation Paper.
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