The wait time for Canadian air travel complaints is making the airport security line look like a picnic.
Driving the news: Even before the Air Canada flight attendant strike began, the Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) was facing a backlog of 85,000 air passenger complaints. The log-jam of grievances, as well as the time it takes to resolve them, has skyrocketed in the last few years.
- The agency now fields over 42,000 complaints a year for flight cancellations, delays, and other disruptions, more than triple the ~12,000 it received just three years ago.
- With the current backlog, new complaints could take over two years to resolve, up from about 18 months in 2023.
Why it matters: After a three-day strike at Canada’s largest airline that affected ~500,000 passengers, the situation is going to get worse before it gets better. Pre-strike, the backlog was already projected to hit 126,000 by 2028.
- Complaint resolution is especially important for Canadian flyers: the country’s top two airlines, Air Canada and WestJet, had the worst on-time performances of large airlines in North America last year.
What’s next: The CTA proposed new rules last year that would scrap its case-by-case system and make airlines automatically responsible for delays over two hours. That change would likely cut down on the flood of complaints and make it easier for passengers to get compensated for disruptions.—LA