The Canadian Transportation Agency launches consultations to strengthen air passenger protection

July 11, 2023 – Gatineau, QC – Canadian Transportation Agency

Today, the Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) is launching consultations on proposed amendments to the Air Passenger Protection Regulations (APPR), and invites Canadians to participate.

The Budget Implementation Act introduces changes to the Canada Transportation Act (the Act) to clarify, simplify and strengthen the Canadian air passenger protection regime. The CTA will have to make regulations to implement these changes.

The consultation period will be open for 30 calendar days and end August 10, 2023. After considering the feedback and comments received, the CTA will publish draft regulations in Canada Gazette Part I. There will be an opportunity to review and comment on the draft regulations before they are finalized, approved by the CTA and Cabinet, and published in Canada Gazette II.

More information about the consultation process can be found on our website, including instructions for providing comments on our Consultation Paper.

What is changing?

The changes to the Act strengthen Air Passenger Protection eliminate the current three categories of flight disruptions which were used to determine the compensation to which passengers were entitled.

Airlines will have to provide compensation for inconvenience to passengers when there is a flight disruption, unless there are exceptional circumstances, and airlines will have the burden to prove the situation is an exceptional circumstance. One objective of the consultations is to define these exceptions.

In addition, as a result of the legislative changes and to take into account lessons learned since the coming into force of the APPR in 2019, the CTA is proposing other regulatory amendments. These include amendments to assistance (standards of treatment) and communication requirements, and the defining of passenger entitlements that would apply in the case of all flight disruptions, and separately those that would apply for exceptional circumstances. Further details can be found in the Consultation Paper.

In addition to these proposed regulatory changes, the BIA brings major changes to improve the efficiency of the CTA's dispute resolution process and it authorizes the CTA to recover from airlines the costs of processing air passenger complaints which will be the object of a separate consultation process later in 2023.

Quote

"The Canadian Transportation Agency welcomes the opportunity to improve the air passenger protection regime. We are committed to improving how air passengers complaints are processed and to provide better services to Canadians."

- France Pégeot, Chair and CEO of the Canadian Transportation Agency

Reference material

• Air Passenger Protection Regulations
• Budget Implementation Act, 2023
• Backgrounder
• Consultation on proposed changes
• Consultation Paper

About the CTA

The Canadian Transportation Agency is an independent, quasi-judicial tribunal and regulator that has, with respect to all matters necessary for the exercise of its jurisdiction, all the powers of a superior court. The CTA has three core mandates: helping to keep the national transportation system running efficiently and smoothly, protecting the fundamental right of persons with disabilities to accessible transportation services, and providing consumer protection for air passengers. To help advance these mandates, the CTA makes and enforces ground rules that establish the rights and responsibilities of transportation service providers and users and level the playing field among competitors, resolves disputes using a range of tools from facilitation and mediation to arbitration and adjudication, and ensures that transportation providers and users are aware of their rights and responsibilities and how the CTA can help them.