Public consultations under way to help air passengers get better protection

If your flight has ever been cancelled, grounded or worse – your bags were lost – and you’ve had no idea what your rights were, you’re not alone.

The Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) says they get about 6000 complaints a year — and on Thursday, they held their first of multiple country-wide passenger consultations at the Sheraton Centre in Toronto.

The federal government recently passed the Modernization Transportation Act.

Chair and CEO of the CTA Scott Streiner says it will a create base standards that all airlines will have to adhere to.

“Up until now its been individual tariffs each airline has set out its own terms and conditions of carriage,” he said. “In the areas where we create regulations, there’s going to be a common floor and it will apply to every airline flying passengers within, to, or from Canada.”

Streiner also claims that one of the only ways passengers have been able to find recourse when they have an issue flying is in that fine print of a lengthy tariff.

“I think its critical that travelers know where they can turn for recourse. We, at the CTA, to mediate and adjudicate allegations from travelers if an airline hasn’t respected its obligations,” He said.

Though passengers rights advocates say there is already protection in place under the Carriage by Air Act that incorporates the Montreal Convention into Canadian law, they say enforcement by the CTA is the big issue.

Some, like Gabor Lukacs, who is the founder of Air Passenger Rights, believe Thursday’s consultation and the ones to follow in the days and weeks ahead across the country are nothing more than a PR stunt.

“This is the publicity stunt to legitimize what has already been decided by the airlines and the government in secret meetings that took place last year,” he said. “We found out about those secret consultations from court documents from the Supreme Court of Canada.”

The CTA denies those claims. It will be clear who the new legislation actually helps once the transportation agency finalizes the new act sometime this year.

The CTA will be hosting consultations in Vancouver, Calgary and Yellowknife before returning to Eastern Canada and wrapping up in Ottawa next month.