The federal court of appeal ruled to largely uphold the rules that bolster compensation for air passengers subjected to delayed flights and damaged luggage.
The court on Tuesday dismissed the appeal that challenged the validity of the passenger bill of rights, with the exception of one regulation that applies to the temporary loss of baggage.
Earlier this year,
The airlines argued that the country’s passenger rights charter violates global standards and should be rendered invalid for international flights.
This includes the most recent amendment made to the passenger protections that require airline compensation if they cannot provide a new reservation within 48 hours of a flight cancellation or "lengthy delay" for delays and cancellations outside of the airline's control such as major weather events or a pandemic.
The three-year-old federal regulations took on renewed relevance to thousands of Canadians in 2020 as pandemic lockdowns and border closures grounded fleets and prompted mass flight cancellations.
A request from the airlines to suspend the Air Passenger Protection Regulations (APPR), initially launched by the airlines in 2019, was turned down by the federal court of appeal in 2020.
Last fall the
In court filings, the airlines argued that the regulations exceed the Canadian Transportation Agency’s authority. They also went against the
In a case that pitted IATA and the airlines against the CTA and the attorney general,
However, the court said that the interpretation of "lost baggage" was inconsistent with the
Air passenger rights advocate
While Lukacs has criticized the lack of breadth and enforcement of the APPR, he said that the court's decision to uphold passenger protection in
Lukacs said there is a lot of work ahead to get air passenger protections that actually work and advocated for a passenger bill of rights similar to that of the EU.
A similar challenge was presented by IATA to the EU, who argued that a regime similar to the regulations has been in force since 2004 and the
This report by The Canadian Press was first published
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