Originally Posted by
skybluesea
yet the advertisement supports “infallible” without any caveat - the Act is clear that accurate and tested information needs to be provided before a purchase decision, and AC continues with same infallible advertisement despite widespread knowledge of failure.
I also will assert power imbalance as when seat deflates mid-flight, Aeronautics Act prevents me from mitigation like withdrawing from the contract, which would be a remedy available on the ground when a service provider fails. AC could withdraw from inventory seats known to repeatedly fail, so AC may knowingly sell a product that fails to meet performance test section of the Act.
and IFE is useful but available in economy just in smaller version, completely different than the core offering that the lie-flat seat represents as a competitive offering in the J marketplace...you just raised for me that maybe senior colleague at WJ May want to raise that AC competing in the WJ space with false advertising.
unfortunately, why should I have to add to my busy schedule time to resolve known AC failure, that’s a cost to me, a cost to a lot of folks on this thread and others, and AC is booking huge profits at our expense .. is this not exactly why the deceptive advertising section of the Act exists?
The Bureau would never assert that there is an expectation for a product to be infallible. It is utterly unreasonable, and any average person would acknowledge that is an unrealistic standard. Their print / online advertising doesn't, to the best of my knowledge, claim to be infallible (and if it did, it would fall under the hyperbole exemption I am guessing).
The contract of carriage doesn't guarantee you a specific seat so you cannot claim Air Canada is selling you a specific, defective, seat. Based on a number of threads here, 20% of the cabin having an issue seems to be one of the higher numbers. You have little way (wiki here excepted) of knowing if those seats have constantly failed, or if they were fixed for a time, and have broken again. Wear and tear and things not working happens on all airlines (and in my personal experience this includes defective Westjet Premium seats, so not sure they want to throw those stones around). If the crew have been told how to reset, that is mitigation in flight if it works (and it sometimes does). If they provide additional blankets etc. that is also mitigation, albeit not ideal. The fact most people are receiving compensation shows that Air Canada are fulfilling the reasonable restitution part of the problem. They are not expected to be perfect, but are obligated to try and make things right when things do fail.
You have already approached AC for resolution. I personally think claims of deceptive advertising are a non starter with the Bureau for the several reasons I have laid out, but then again, notifying them takes about as long as it takes to make a post in this forum, so I am not sure that is much of a valid claim on your time tbh. Or instructing your lawyer, which is likely even quicker since you have already contacted her/him.
Again, personally I think this is a crappy situation, and really hope they get their butts in gear and resolve it asap.