CAA hopes to help air passengers with new travel guide
With nothing but blue skies at the Greater Moncton Romeo LeBlanc International Airport, Tuesday brought forward perfect travel conditions, but not every trip involves such little turbulence.
“Delayed flights are very common,” said Eric Plourd, who flies every two weeks for work.
“Baggage — I’ve had my baggage lost more times than I can count. Usually they’re pretty on point with getting it back, but there’s been times where it’s been up to almost a two-week delay which can be quite frustrating.”
Back in 2019, the Federal Government unveiled a new set of rules to better protect air passengers in Canada, but some experts are calling it confusing and hard to navigate, which is why on Tuesday, CAA released a new online guide to help travellers navigate their rights when it comes to air travel.
“There’s 60 pages and there’s very few people that are going to go through those and actually find out what, if anything, they are owed,” said CAA Atlantic Social Responsibility and Advocacy director, Julia Kent.
“This guide covers the most common issues that we see and in five clicks or less you can get exactly what you are owed and you can find out how to go about obtaining that.”
According to recent polling by CAA, 61 per cent of Canadians say they’ve experienced flight disruptions in the last two years or know someone who has.
Kent says over 80 per cent of Canadians came forward saying they want more transparency when it comes to how airlines are performing including how often they’re on time or how often they lose baggage.
“We really just want the protection to be accessible, easy to use and easy to understand for Atlantic Canadians,” she said.
Kirk Reid travels 10-15 times a year and he says he personally knows about his rights as an air passenger.
“There’s no point in having rights if you don’t actually use them,” he said.
He says it’s a personal responsibility and it should be a cooperative effort between the airlines, carriers and the public.
“Of course I’ve lost bags. Of course flights have been cancelled, whatever, but generally in this case the squeaky wheel does not get the grease,” he said.
“Really, by being honest and nice to people, you usually get taken care of in an appropriate way.”
However, many at the airport on Tuesday didn’t know about passenger rights or where they could turn, outside of the airport, if they were to run into problems.
“As I travel so much, I probably should look into what all my rights are in regards to that,” said Plourd.
Karen Rae was taking her first flight since the pandemic and she wishes the information was more readily available.
“When you go on to book a flight, it tells you all the things you can’t bring and you can’t do and you can’t take and … basically at the airport is the same, but you don’t have anyway to find out what your rights are,” she said.
She recalls one incident where she was stuck on the tarmac for nearly three hours before she was re-boarded onto another plane.
Kent says that according to Statistics Canada, 78.3 million Canadians flew in the second quarter of 2023.
“That’s a lot of people in the air and that’s a lot of people that deserve protection and deserve to know their rights and how they should be treated by airlines, so that’s really want we want. We want people to be treated fairly and we want them to easily understand what their rights are,” she said.
CAA’s new travel guide only focuses on the most common hiccups, such as delays or cancellations, baggage issues or even denied boarding, but it aims to be helpful resource for Canadians everywhere.
“This guide launched (Tuesday) is really great to make it easy to read, simple to understand, plain language and in five clicks or less you can find out what, if anything, you’re owed if you do experience a snafu at the airport,” she said.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
![](https://www.ctvnews.ca/polopoly_fs/1.6978861.1722008569!/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_800/image.jpg)
At least 4 buildings burned at Jasper Park Lodge, others damaged: Fairmont memo
The Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge said Thursday afternoon most of its structures are 'standing and intact,' including its iconic main lodge.
Major Canadian bank experiences direct deposit outage on payday
Scotiabank says it has fixed a technical issue that impacted direct deposits on Friday morning.
'He was just gone': Police ramp up search for vulnerable 3-year-old boy in Mississauga, Ont.
Police in Mississauga are conducting a full-scale search of the city’s biggest park for a non-verbal toddler who went missing Thursday evening. Sgt. Jennifer Trimble told reporters Friday morning that there has been no trace of three-year-old Zaid Abdullah since 6:20 p.m., when he was last seen with his parents in Erindale Park, near Dundas Street West and Mississauga Road.
Sask. appeal court says anti-trans group cannot join constitutional dispute over pronoun law
Saskatchewan’s Court of Appeal has denied a political group that opposes so-called “gender ideology” intervener status in a legal dispute over the province’s controversial pronoun law.
Driver charged after flashing high beams at approaching police
Orillia OPP arrested and charged a driver with impaired driving after flashing their high beams.
Powerful cartel leader 'El Mayo' Zambada was lured onto airplane before arrest in U.S., AP source says
A powerful Mexican drug cartel leader who eluded authorities for decades was duped into flying into the U.S., where he was arrested alongside a son of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, according to a U.S. law enforcement official familiar with the matter.
Elon Musk's estranged daughter calls out his 'entirely fake' claims about her childhood
Vivian Jenna Wilson, Elon Musk's estranged daughter, publicly refuted several recent anti-trans statements her Tesla CEO and X owner father has made about her.
What we know about 'malicious' attack on French train network ahead of Olympics opening
French transport was thrust into chaos Friday just hours ahead of the Olympics 2024 opening ceremony after a series of co-ordinated 'malicious acts' upended high-speed train lines.Here's what happened and what we know so far.
When Barbie learned what a gynecologist was, so did many other people, according to new study
A new study published Thursday in the journal JAMA Network Open has found that the ending in the 2023 blockbuster film 'Barbie' had an influence on online search interest in terms around gynecology, the branch of medicine that deals with women’s reproductive health.