Transport Minister vows to clear 97,000 travel complaint backlog, as fines for airlines increase

OTTAWA - The federal government wants to quadruple the maximum fines airlines could pay for systemic violations to $1 million, as transport minister Steven MacKinnon also vowed to clear an air travel complaint backlog nearing 100,000.

“The system did not work as planned. We put in place a system that, in hindsight, was onerous, expensive, took too long… so we are going to change that system.” MacKinnon told reporters standing at the Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport Friday.

MacKinnon was expanding on a promise included in Tuesday’s Spring Economic Update, which committed to “develop a simpler and more effective regulatory regime, so that rules are clearer and passengers are fairly compensated when air travel does not go as planned,” as well as clear the backlog of air passenger complaints.

The Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) tells CTV News the current backlog stands at about 97,000.

The agency points to a significant increase in complaints over the past four years as a driver of that backlog. Each week since the beginning of January, the CTA says it received more than 1,000 complaints each week.

A new system

As it stands now, the CTA says it can take more than two years for a complaint to be reviewed. Not including the time spent waiting in the backlog, after a review begins, the average case takes 54 days to be resolved.

“The CTA continues to develop new tools, processes, and strategies to maximize the number of complaints that can be resolved and is currently working to leverage artificial intelligence to aid resolution officers allowing them to render decisions more quickly,” CTA spokesperson Jadrino Huot wrote in a statement.

Ottawa is looking to move to a neutral, third-party complaint resolution system to provide “private sector know-how and lessons learned,” said MacKinnon, similar to the model used in the European Union and United Kingdom.

“If you are one of the 100,000 or so people involved in this backlog, help is on the way, and we will be moving very, very quickly to put in place a new regime that will be widely understood by everyone involved and effective to administer and implement,” he said Friday.

‘You get nowhere, it takes forever’

Robert Walker is a frequent flyer for business, but not one of those 100,000 complainees – even though he could be.

He has amassed so many delay and cancellation notices from airlines over the past year and a half, he tells CTV News he was thinking of writing a book about it. While frustrated, he’s never filed an official complaint, because he doesn’t see the point.

“You get nowhere, it takes forever, I don’t have time to worry about it, and I don’t think anything will ever be done,” Walker said, not holding his breath about efforts by the government.

A sentiment echoed by the head of the Air Passenger Rights group.

“I don’t believe the government. These issues have been known for the past nine years,” says Gabor Lukacs.

He sees moving to third-party adjudication as “smoke and mirrors” in an effort to “solve a PR problem.”

“[The government] will be able to shake their finger at whatever third party is running the adjudication process, and say, ‘you are not doing your job well,’ but the problem is being perpetuated,” he told CTV News.

Lukacs says the reason systems work better in Europe is not due to third-party adjudication, but thanks to a much simpler system “where it can be decided within minutes whether compensation is or isn’t owed to a passenger” – and that’s what he would like to see in Canada.

Striking the right balance

MacKinnon said Friday, Ottawa will consult with a number of stakeholders, including air passenger rights groups and airlines to “make sure that we find the right balance.”

After the first details of the government’s plan emerged in the spring update, the head of the National Airlines Council of Canada told CTV News in an interview the organization welcomed an acknowledgement from Ottawa that the system needs reform.

“We’re encouraged by that,” Jeff Morrison said Wednesday, noting more details were needed.

He called the current system “not only complex, but far too costly to administer, and especially with respect to high compensation requirements.”

“Passengers are paying for that,” he said.

After MacKinnon released more details Friday, CTV News reached out to the NACC again, but the NACC declined to provide an updated comment about the $1M potential fine.