Air passengers filing federal complaints over poor service can expect to wait nearly two years, says the Canadian Transportation Agency. One consumers’ advocate called the backlog "predictable.".“At the moment our backlog is about 25,000 complaints,” Tom Oommen, director general at the Agency, testified at the House of Commons transport committee. “It was noted over the summer the number of incoming complaints to the Agency was high. Since then, the pace of complaints has slowed down somewhat but I believe the current backlog is about 25,000.”.According to Blacklock's Reporter, before the pandemic the Agency was processing roughly 5,000 complaints a year. “Through efficiencies we’ve managed to increase that to 15,000 complaints on average in a year," Oommen said..“If tomorrow I file a complaint and I am the 25,000th on the list how, long should I expect to wait for an answer?” asked Bloc Québécois MP Jean-Denis Garon (Mirabel, Que.). “I can’t offer a precise figure,” replied Oommen..“As I say, if we have 25,000 complaints pending and we can resolve with our current resources 15,000 complaints per year, that gives you an idea of how long it takes,” Oommen added..“I’ll calculate,” said Garon. “If I am the 25,000th in the queue this means I would have to wait a year and eight months without getting an answer. Do you think that’s reasonable?”.“There’s always room to improve," replied Oommen..The Transportation Agency is mandated to investigate breaches of Air Passenger Protection Regulations. The 2019 regulations fixed compensation rates for poor service from $400 for a three-hour flight delay to $$900 for ticket holders denied boarding and $2,100 for lost or damaged luggage..Conservative MP Lianne Rood (Lambton-Kent, Ont.) told the transport committee she attempted to use an airport this past summer. “Three quarters of the flights on the board were either cancelled or delayed,” said Rood..“There was nowhere to sit, not a chair to be found anywhere in the airport terminal. People were laying on the cement floor, sleeping on the ground, with long lineups to get food or drinks as they were waiting for hours and hours," she said..Rood did not name the airport. However, Toronto’s Pearson International Airport last summer had the longest delays in Canada, with only 35% of flights on time in July, according to the Greater Toronto Airports Authority..John Lawford, executive director of the consumers’ group Public Interest Advocacy Centre, said lengthy waits to review passengers’ complaints were not new. “There are somewhere between 16,000 and 20,000 that are about a year old,” Lawford told the transport committee..“This backlog is due in part to bad timing,” said Lawford. “The Air Passenger Protection Regulations were proclaimed just before COVID-19 in the fall of 2019. However, it has always been the position of the Public Interest Advocacy Centre that the regulations were going to generate a backlog.”
