PIAC supports proposed Regulations Amending the Air Passenger Protection Regulations

PIAC supports the proposed Regulations Amending the Air Passenger Protection Regulations, released in July 2021 for comments by the Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA). These regulations are meant to provide refunds to air passengers for flight cancellations and lengthy delays due to situations outside the air carrier’s control.

How it began?

The Minister of Transport in December 2020 issued a direction to the CTA to make a regulation that must provide for refunds to passengers for flight cancellations due to situations outside of a carrier’s control, including the situations listed in subsection 10(1) of the Air Passenger Protection Regulations, that prevent it from ensuring that passengers complete their itinerary within a reasonable time. The direction also stated that the CTA may determine that refunds be provided for lengthy delays due to situations outside of a carrier’s control. This was prompted by the refund issues for air passengers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Consultation Process:

The CTA had an initial consultation asking for feedback on the contents of this regulation and later released proposed regulations and sought further comments. The main areas covered by these proposed regulations include; refund timing/obligation, refund coverage, refund method and refund deadline.

PIAC comments:

We commented on both stages and strongly supported this initiative for advancing air passenger rights.

Our initial submission indicated support for providing refunds in case of flight cancellations as well as lengthy delays. We suggested that a reasonable time for completing a passenger’s itinerary should not be more than 48 hours for both large and small carriers, unless a right of care applied (that could mean passengers’ access to meals, communications and/or accommodations services, depending on the length of delay). Since the CTA might not be considering such a right, then a right to refund should be triggered after 48 hours of delay. We submitted that refunds should be paid in the original payment method or in monetary form. We disapproved of other non-monetary forms of payments, which could be easily exploited by airlines to their advantage by promoting these options over cash refunds. We suggested specific safeguards for protecting air passengers if they were to be given a choice between cash refunds and non-monetary forms of refunds.

In our second submission, we supported the proposed provisions with clarifications suggested regarding certain aspects such as the default option for refunds should be the original method of payment, and that this should apply if passengers do not confirm in writing about their preferred form of refund within a stipulated time frame, which should not be more than 7 calendar days. We also asked for the right to care issue to be considered in a separate consultation.

Read our full submissions:

• PIAC’s Initial submission (March 2021). This is also posted on the CTA’s website and can be found here.
• PIAC’s second submission (October 2021).