Air Canada has to pay over $15,000 after two courts rule in Ottawa man's favour
A retired Ottawa business consultant and father has taken on Air Canada and won — twice.
Rejean Landry ‘s plans for a summer 2022 trip to Portugal for himself and adult children were disrupted by Air Canada delays and ticket cancellations. Landry eventually took his complaints about the airline’s handling of the trip to small claims court late last year. Then, when Air Canada appealed, he fought the airline in the Ontario Superior Court.
But there won’t be a third time. Air Canada has confirmed with National Post that it won’t be appealing again.
Peter Fitzpatrick, manager of corporate communications for Air Canada says the airline appealed the small claims court decision because it disagreed with how the law was interpreted. Canada’s Air Passenger Protection Regulations (APPR) are “fairly new … and there are few cases interpreting them,” Fitzpatrick wrote in a recent email to National Post, adding, “it is important that they be interpreted correctly. Our concern was and remains that they were not.”
Toronto litigators represented Air Canada at both levels of court, whereas Landry represented himself in small claims court and didn’t hire a lawyer until Air Canada filed its appeal.
The judges in both levels of court ruled against Air Canada. The airline will have to pay almost $15,000 in compensation, the Ontario Superior Court said in a decision released on Jan. 12.
Landry booked the trip for himself and two adult children from Montreal to Portugal via Toronto, travelling on July 2, 2022. He also bought return tickets for his two children from Lisbon to Toronto on July 16, 2022, and a return ticket for himself, leaving Lisbon for Montreal on Aug. 2, 2022.
His son Sebastien (now 24) and daughter Emali (now 21) had to come back earlier for summer jobs. Only semi-retired at the time, Landry decided to stay on a little longer.
It was that summer when airlines were getting back on their feet , restarting travel after COVID restrictions were lifted, recounts Landry.
The Landrys were forced to navigate that post-COVID travel storm. Their flight from Montreal to Toronto was delayed. And since the flight to Lisbon would have been missed, Landry purchased three new higher-fare, refundable tickets from Toronto to Lisbon.
When they got to Toronto, Landry says he was told by an Air Canada agent they should use the new tickets. She also transferred their luggage so it would be connected to the new tickets. Then she told them to go into the city and enjoy themselves, recounts Landry.
Later, when his kids went to the airport in Lisbon to fly back to Canada, they were told their return flights had been cancelled because they hadn’t used the first portion of their tickets to get to Lisbon. So, he had to buy new tickets for them.
Landry pursued his complaints with Air Canada after returning from his trip, exchanging emails with the airline for months. Initially, he simply wanted a refund for the new Toronto to Lisbon tickets worth $6,500. But when he didn’t get a positive response from Air Canada, he decided to take his battle to small claims court.
The small claims court ruled in Landry’s favour, ordering Air Canada to pay compensation for the delay of the flights from Montreal to Toronto, the cost of the replacement tickets from Toronto to Portugal, compensation for “denial of boarding” (his children’s cancelled flights) and the cost of his children’s return flights from Lisbon.
His tabulation of the costs that went into the roughly $15K award are as follows: $1,000 each for the initial delay, $6.5K for the new tickets, $1.8K for each of his children and the denial of boarding, plus other connected fees and costs.
Air Canada tried to argue Landry shouldn’t have booked replacement flights, and instead should have waited for the airline to rebook them.
“They said I shouldn’t have accepted what the Air Canada agent said, that I should have found another agent to help.”
Neither the small claims court, nor Superior Court Justice Ian Carter, found any merit in Air Canada’s argument. Sinclair ruled that there was no evidence Air Canada informed Landry he had to wait to be rebooked.
“In fact, there is nothing … in the Montreal Convention that states a passenger must wait to accept a new flight from the airline,” wrote Sinclair in his decision. (The Montreal Convention is a treaty that governs international travel and airline liability and covers concerns such as passenger injury/death, baggage issues, and delays.)
Justice Carter noted that Air Canada has a rebooking tool that will attempt to automatically re-book a passenger on a later flight if there are delays, and if the tool is successful the passenger will receive notification of a revised itinerary. “However, there was no evidence that the rebooking tool had been activated or that Air Canada made any other attempt to rebook (Landry),” he wrote.
Carter was also abrupt in assessing Air Canada’s handling of the entire matter: “As noted by the (small claims court judge), this entire claim could have been avoided if Air Canada, in its multitude of emails to its waiting passengers in Montreal, had clearly stated words to the effect that he should not make any attempts to rebook and that Air Canada would do it automatically.”
In preparing for his case against Air Canada in small claims court, Landry reached out to Gábor Lukács , founder and coordinator of Air Passenger Rights , an independent nonprofit organization that advocates for the rights of the travelling public.
“There are three important principles coming out from this decision,” Lukács told National Post in an email.
First, he said, if an airline provides what is known as “alternate transportation” (when an airline rebooks on one of its own planes or one of its partner airlines within nine hours, or another carrier withing 48 hours), the passenger can choose to not accept it, but then their only right is to take a refund plus $400 in compensation.
Since that didn’t happen in this case, the compensation was set at $1,000 each. “I f the airline fails to offer alternate transportation at all, or offers one that does not meet the APPR’s (Canadian air passenger protection rights) requirements, then it is in breach of contract. The passenger can and should buy (another) flight … and the airline’s liability is not for a refund of the passenger’s airfare, but instead for the cost of the replacement flight, which is often far more than the original airfare the passenger paid.”
Second, notes Lukács, as Justice Carter stated in his decision, there is nothing in the Montreal Convention that states that a passenger must wait to accept a new flight from the airline. “This is also a very important point. The onus is on the airline to offer alternate transportation, but if they fail to do so, the passenger does not have to sit around like a lame duck.”
Finally, he praised Sinclair’s decision as “
an indication that the judiciary sees
through what airlines are doing to passengers, and judicial patience and
goodwill are running thin.
Overall, it is a fair and impartial decision that holds the airline to
the
intent and purpose of the law, and does not cut the airline any slack.”
Indeed, Sinclair dismissed Air Canada’s appeal.
It’s been almost four years since Landry’s case began, but he urges other travellers battling airline complaints to take their fights to court.
Despite the time the case has taken, is Landry pleased with the outcome? “Absolutely,” he says, “but I haven’t received the money yet.”
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