Air passenger advocates are urging senators to reject a federal proposal that would allow airlines to use private third parties to resolve passenger complaints, warning the system could undermine impartiality without fixing a backlog of about 97,000 cases.Blacklock's Reporter says the proposal is contained in Division 17 of Bill C-31, the government's second 2025 budget implementation bill. The Senate transport and communications committee heard testimony on the provisions Wednesday evening from Air Passenger Rights, Flight Claim and Option consommateurs.“Consumers often feel they have been left to fend for themselves following a flight disruption,” Sara-Eve Levac, counsel for Option consommateurs, testified. “They receive insufficient information and assistance.”Bill C-31 would permit airlines to enter agreements with designated third parties to resolve specified passenger complaints currently handled through the Canadian Transportation Agency.Gabor Lukacs, president of Air Passenger Rights, urged senators to reject the proposal.“The government proposes to solve the crisis by privatizing passenger complaint adjudication,” Lukacs testified, warning the legislation “would allow airlines to handpick adjudicators.” questioned whether adjudicators selected and paid by airlines could face conflicts of interest.“The fact the airline chooses the adjudicator means they have some leverage,” Lukacs replied.Lukacs said Canada's Air Passenger Protection Regulations have become unnecessarily complicated and argued that moving cases outside the Canadian Transportation Agency would not necessarily speed up decisions.“The regime is so complex a decision maker must review hundreds if not thousands of pages of documents, consuming a full working day on average, to resolve a mere $400 case,” he said. “Private, third-party adjudicators will not render decisions any faster.”The Senate has previously been told the Canadian Transportation Agency faces a backlog of approximately 97,000 air passenger complaints.Parliament introduced the Air Passenger Protection Regulations in 2019, establishing compensation requirements for certain flight delays, cancellations, denied boarding and lost or damaged baggage.Jacob Charbonneau, CEO of passenger compensation consultant Flight Claim, told senators the current system has become complicated and unpredictable.He cited disruptions surrounding a WestJet flight attendants' strike, saying the labour dispute itself lasted only hours but cancellations extended for days.“About 250,000 passengers saw their flights cancelled,” Charbonneau testified..He said passengers who submitted claims received responses attributing the cancellations to a strike beyond the airline's control.“Yet a flight cancelled before a strike begins or after it ends is a scheduling decision by the carrier itself,” Charbonneau said.He contrasted Canada's rules with European Union regulations, which he said treat a strike involving an airline's own employees as within the carrier's control for compensation purposes.Charbonneau warned passengers filing complaints today could wait years for decisions.“People making a claim today can expect a decision by 2029,” he said. “This is the heart of the problem. The carrier holds all the cards and the cost of denial is nothing.”Charbonneau said the Canadian Transportation Agency ultimately rules for passengers in 57% of cases but argued the long delays give airlines little incentive to resolve disputes quickly.“The result of this is that nearly 100,000 complaints are in the backlog,” he said. “There are delays of up to 36 months.”Charbonneau said shifting complaints to private adjudicators would move rather than eliminate the underlying problem.“The bill does not resolve the backlog, it relocates it,” he said. “In shifting it to another place, it removes the passenger’s only guarantee of impartiality.”The Senate transport and communications committee is conducting a separate study of the air passenger provisions in Bill C-31 and is required to report its findings to the Senate by Oct. 9.
