After a month of hassle, St. Albertan resident Karen Madsen has some strong words about air travel.
“If you can avoid airlines, avoid them,” she said.
On Sept. 8, new refund regulations under the Air Passenger Protection Regulation will come into effect and Madsen, along with other many other Canadians who have experienced the frustrations of canceled flights, uncertainties, and poor customer service, are hoping the changes will impact the way airlines treat customers.
In June Madsen bought tickets for a flight to London, Ont., for Sept. 4-8 through Swoop airlines. The trip was for herself and her daughter, who had planned to travel to see her mother, who has cancer, for what they believe will be the final time.
On Aug. 11, Madsen received an email that her flight had been changed to Sept. 6-8. They would not arrive in London until 9 p.m. which would leave them with only one day to visit her mom.
In the email, Madsen was given the option to change the flight, cancel, or rebook. She chose to rebook.
When Madsen called to have the flight changed to Sept. 3, she was told by the airlines it would cost her an additional $430 for each ticket.
“It would be $880. And I said, ‘Do you take that off what I already paid?’ And he said, ‘No, that's extra.” Madsen said. “I can't afford $900. But they can take two days [of] flying away from me, and not reimburse me?”
Madsen tried calling a second time to see if they could change the flight for a better price and again, she was told it was going to cost her an additional $900.
“I said ‘I don't have $900. What I do have is a dying mother in London, Ontario, who only has two months to live. If I don't get there, I don't see her. I'd rather see her alive than in a coffin,” she said.
Swoop would not bargain with her, so she asked for a refund and was told by the person she was speaking with that Swoop’s flights are non-refundable.
“I got upset. I said, “You just can't take people's money against the law.”
Madsen decided to go to the media.
Swoop did not respond to a request for comment, but a few days after Madsen went to multiple media outlets, she said she received an email from the airline.
They changed her flight to Sept. 3 without additional charges.
According to a press release from the Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA), once the new regulations come into force they will “require airlines to provide passengers with either a refund or rebooking, at the passenger's choice, when there is a flight cancellation, or a lengthy delay, due to a situation outside the airline’s control that prevents it from ensuring that passengers complete their itinerary within a reasonable time.”
These changes will apply to flights to, from, and within Canada, but it is difficult to say whether these changes would have impacted Madsen.
Madsen isn’t the only person who has had trouble with airlines.
On Aug. 19, the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities held a meeting on airport delays and cancellations.
The federal minister of transportation, Omar Alghabra, said airports have seen an increase in daily passenger volume between January and August 2022 by 253 per cent, but that is not an excuse for the issues airlines are facing.
Alghabra blamed the problems primarily on COVID. He said the federal government has been hiring more Canadian Air Transport Security Authority officers and has worked to address operation bottleneck issues, and he is seeing encouraging results.
Over the second week of August only two per cent of flights planned for Canada's top four airports were canceled — a drop of more than five per cent over the first week of July.
Liz Dwenychuk, a spokesperson for the Edmonton International Airport, said in an email that EIA’s flight cancellations for this year are currently under three per cent of all flights.
“While our airport is not experiencing the same issues as other airports, the whole system is connected, so if there are issues in one area, we understand it may surface in other areas,” she said.
Alghabra said his government has also provided the CTA with an additional $11 million to deal with the backlog of complaints.
“Airlines must respect travelers' rights and compensate travelers who are eligible,” Alghabra said.
The new regulations can be found here: https://gazette.gc.ca/rp-pr/p2/2022/2022-06-22/html/sor-dors134-eng.html
