In news that should surprise absolutely nobody, a major Canadian airline is not a fan of regulations that force them to compensate passengers for flight delays.
Driving the news: According to documents obtained by the Toronto Star, WestJet has been lobbying the federal government to remove the Air Passenger Protection Regulations (APPR), arguing that the system stifles competition in the sector and adds to airlines’ already high operating costs.
The APPR were introduced in 2019 to make it easier for Canadian travellers to get compensated for flight delays and cancellations.
Catch-up: Airlines aren’t happy about the added cost of APPR, and they could soon be paying more. Amendments proposed in December 2024, which still have yet to be rolled out, would automatically place responsibility for a flight disruption of more than three hours on the airline.
Right now, airlines only have to provide refunds, hotel rooms, and meal vouchers if a flight disruption is caused by something under their control (like understaffing), which is often difficult for passengers to prove.
Why it matters: The passenger protections are great for travellers in theory, but whether they have benefitted fliers in practice is a matter of debate. More than 95,000 unresolved complaints (which now takes three years on average to resolve) are still in the backlog and airlines say added costs just get passed on to passengers.
Canada’s transport regulator estimated that airlines are paying an additional $27.50 per passenger to apply the current passenger protections.
Our take: Air Canada and WestJet both ranked in the bottom three of North American airlines for on-time performance in 2025. Even if some of the costs of the APPR are passed onto passengers, the relative success of similar regulations in Europe show that passenger rights rules can work when implemented correctly. —LA
