Canadian transport agency to fine major airlines over travel chaos

A day after learning the federal government is going to spend millions of dollars investigating airline passenger complaints, the Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) announced it is going to fine the airlines for what they put passengers through during the travel chaos over the holidays and last summer.

Tens of thousands of complaints saw Flair Airlines and WestJet rack up the most violations, however, the biggest individual fine was handed to Sunwing — $126,000 — for failing to keep passengers updated during flight delays in December.

The fines typically range between $2,500 and $39,000 each. But is it enough?

One flyer CityNews spoke to, Stanley, says he’s glad to hear the CTA has fined the airlines.

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“I think it’s like a contract. You pay, they get you to a destination, there’s some reasonable expectation that they get you there in a reasonable time,” he said.

However, one passenger at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport tells CityNews the fines are too low.

“They’re big enough airlines, they should probably be paying a little bit more for what happened,” she said. “They had a big fiasco in December. We travelled in December, and we didn’t even feel comfortable checking our luggage.”

Another woman says she saw people waiting for days in the airport without any “information about how they’re going to get home or why they’re having to wait. You can’t live that way.”

The fines come after federal Transport Minister Omar Alghabra said Tuesday the federal government will also close a loophole that allows airlines to deny customers compensation for cancelled flights.

The reform will come as part of an overhaul of passenger rights to be tabled in Parliament this spring, he says.

Alghabra’s pledge came during a press conference at Toronto’s Pearson airport, where he promised an additional $75.9 million over three years to reduce the backlog of complaints at the CTA.

He says the money will allow the transport regulator to hire 200 more employees who can chip away at the 42,000 complaints currently filed there.