Airline customer complants from Canada

Airline complaints range from bad attitudes to bland fruit cups

Last Updated Thu, 11 May 2006 16:21:38 EDT
CBC News
Air passengers filed about 20 per cent more complaints with the Canadian Transportation Agency last year, griping about everything from the attitude of airline employees to lost baggage.

The federal watchdog, which deals with complaints that can't be sorted out between travellers and airlines, says in a new report about to be released that it handled more than 1,300 issues in 2005.

A spokesman, Jadrino Huot, said the agency successfully resolves more than two-thirds of all complaints it hears, but some are beyond its ability to fix.

He cited the example of one man whose luggage was lost while he was travelling from Halifax to Toronto. It was found four days later – but neither the bag nor the live lobsters it contained survived the delay.

"There's not a lot we can do about that, and that passenger will fall into the category of not being happy with the settlement."

Passengers should be aware of their rights, Huot said, but they should also know their responsibilities, and that includes not putting live crustaceans in their suitcases.

In another case, he said, "a passenger wanted two round-the-world tickets because the different melons all tasted the same in his fruit cup."

Huot said the top source of complaints was the attitudes of both ground staff and crew members on planes.

In second place was anything to do with flight disruptions, including delays and cancellations. Complaints involving lost and damaged baggage came in third.

Huot points out that the number of complaints filed with the Canadian Transportation Agency is small compared to the hundreds of thousands of people who take flights in Canada each year.

In many cases, he said, passengers who file complaints are looking for an apology, not compensation.

The 2005 complaints report is due to be released in June.

In the past, the agency has dealt with complaints that ended up changing airline policy.

For example, it sided with a man who said Air Canada should not have denied his two sons the right to board a plane when they arrived 45 minutes before their flight. Staff had said the boys should have shown up an hour in advance for the May 2005 flight from Montreal to Edmonton.

Craig McIntyre had to buy two full-fare tickets to let the boys travel on a later flight.

Air Canada had to give him the money for those fares after the agency's ruling that passengers must be allowed to board as long as they arrive at the departure gate 25 minutes before their flight's scheduled departure.