Maui-Vancouver travellers get mixed messages on compensation after new passenger rights kick in
Credit to Author: Matt Robinson| Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2019 21:23:39 +0000
It was around 2 a.m. on Sunday when Matt Clark and his family received a notification that their WestJet flight, WS1877 from Maui to Vancouver, was five hours delayed.
Later that day, well after Clark, his wife and their three kids under the age of seven had checked out of their hotel, their flight was cancelled entirely.
Clark’s subsequent and as yet fruitless attempts to determine the real reason for delay and cancellation, and whether his family is eligible for compensation, suggests passengers may need to be diligent about ensuring airlines fulfil their obligations under the Canadian Transportation Agency’s new air passenger protection regulations, which kicked in Dec. 15.
The flight that Clark and his family were booked on happened to be the return leg of a trip by the very same aircraft referenced in a story by Postmedia from earlier this week. In that story, at that time, the plane had been delayed for hours in Vancouver, making its passengers, those on WS1876, some of the first in B.C. potentially eligible for compensation under the regulations.
But passengers on that outbound Vancouver to Maui flight said they had been told different things by different agents on the topic of compensation. And passengers on the inbound Maui to Vancouver leg had a similar experience, according to Clark’s account.
Clark’s flight was cancelled while the plane was in the air, en route from Vancouver.
“The only thing I can think of is they figured out mid-flight that something was wrong,” Clark said.
So he asked various agents what had happened.
‘When we checked in for the flight, the desk agent said oh, it was a safety issue related to unscheduled maintenance,’ says Matt Clark, pictured Tuesday in Vancouver. ‘I said so you left Vancouver with an unsafe plane? And then he didn’t really say anything. Then I spoke to a second desk agent at the gate and she said it wasn’t a safety issue.’
“When we checked in for the flight, the desk agent said oh, it was a safety issue related to unscheduled maintenance,” Clark recalled. He responded that he assumed that was why it was late coming out of Vancouver, and that surely the problem had been fixed before its westbound flight over the Pacific Ocean. A manager stepped in and told him the plane had had the same issue again.
“I said so you left Vancouver with an unsafe plane? And then he didn’t really say anything. Then I spoke to a second desk agent at the gate and she said it wasn’t a safety issue.”
The reason is important. The new regulations provide for compensation for flight delays or cancellations “that are in their control and not related to safety,” according to the agency.
Lauren Stewart, a WestJet spokeswoman, said the company apologizes for the delayed and cancelled flights and “if there was any confusion regarding (its) new processes.”
“In adherence with the passenger rights regulations, in some cases guests may be entitled to certain standards of treatment and compensation. Guests may file a claim with WestJet on our website … as our frontline agents are not able to determine whether a guest is eligible for compensation.”
Clark and his family eventually booked into a hotel for about US $500 for the night. He estimated the total cost for the day’s disruption to be around $1,000, when accounting for other things like several meals and transportation.
While checking in at the hotel, another traveller standing at the counter beside him said he had been booked on the same flight. And he said WestJet told him they’d cover the cost of his hotel.
Clark said he still hasn’t received a clear answer on whether the airline will do the same for him.
“You know, on the way back the flight attendants were very nice. All it would have taken is one person to explain what happened. Sometimes companies forget that.”
WestJet would still not say why the flights were delayed or cancelled when asked repeatedly by Postmedia.
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