Canada’s air passenger rights regime
Location: National
Issue/Source: Canada’s air passenger rights/ TRAN
Date: March 2024
Suggested Responses
- Protecting the rights of air passengers is a priority of the Government of Canada, and the Government will continue to ensure that travellers’ rights are respected when air travel does not go as planned.
- A series of legislative amendments to the Canada Transportation Act have been approved to strengthen Canada’s air passenger rights regime, putting the onus on air carriers where it is presumed that compensation is payable, streamlining the processes for administering air travel complaints before the Canadian Transportation Agency, and enhancing its enforcement powers with respect to the air transportation sector.
- The Canadian Transportation Agency has implemented a more streamlined process for resolving air travel complaints and is currently reworking the Air Passenger Protection Regulations to make them more clear and less complex for both travellers and air carriers.
If Pressed
- The new resolution process for air travel complaints took effect in September 2023, and has been designed to increase the Canadian Transportation Agency’s ability to provide timely dispute resolution services to Canadians for both new and existing complaints in the backlog.
- A regulatory process to update the Air Passenger Protection Regulations has also been undertaken by the Canadian Transportation Agency, which includes consultations with Canadians, passenger rights representatives, and air industry stakeholders to inform upcoming changes.
- The updated regulations are expected to be in place at the earliest opportunity and will ensure that travellers are fairly compensated in all cases where disruptions occur, except in exceptional circumstances that will be specifically defined in regulations.
- The intent of the upcoming changes is to clarify the rules, and the objective will always remain to strike a balance between protecting consumers on the one hand and not creating an undue financial burden to airlines that could negatively affect air transport service on the other.
Background Information
- The pandemic and the following recovery period submitted Canada’s passenger rights regime, which fully came into force in December 2019, to an unimaginable stress test. This revealed gaps in the framework that clarifies minimum standards of treatment and compensation that must be provided to passengers based on the level of control an airline has over a flight disruption.
- Legislative amendments to the Canada Transportation Act were included in the Budget Implementation Act, 2023, No.1, which received Royal Assent on June 22, 2023. This will, among other things, allow the Canadian Transportation Agency to remove the three existing categories of disruptions, which were used to determine the compensation to which passengers were entitled. Instead, compensation and standards of treatment will be made mandatory for all disruptions. An exception is made if the disruption was caused by specific circumstances that will be defined in the regulations, in which case air carriers will not be required to provide compensation.
- As the administrator of the Air Passenger Protection Regulations, the Canadian Transportation Agency is responsible for amending the regulations in consultation with the Minister of Transport, and those regulations must be approved by the Governor in Council. As part of the regulatory process, the Canadian Transportation Agency launched pre-consultations in July 2023, with Canadians, passenger rights representatives, and air industry stakeholders to inform upcoming changes. While the Canadian Transportation Agency is currently assessing the input received, it aims to pre-publish draft regulations in Canada Gazette, Part 1, later in spring 2024, which will provide another opportunity to consult on proposed changes before finalizing the regulations.
- The Canadian Transportation Agency has also implemented a new process for resolving air travel complaints, which came into force on September 30, 2023, and replaced the previous resource-intensive process with a simplified and time-bound mediation and arbitration process conducted by complaint resolution officers, primarily Canadian Transportation Agency staff.