Originally Posted by
aerobod
I'm sure there are as many lawyers who will have opinions the other way, otherwise why would there be any need for lawyers (experts in law, you know)? There are also plenty of "ambulance chaser" lawyers out there who would take on a class action suit, one that springs to mind in one of the Prairie Provinces seems to have run into enough problems with his myriad of class action suits, that he has run foul of the Bar Association.
If you read the Swoop Domestic and International Tariffs. they exclude force majeure from refund, not sure why they don't in the Transborder one, in any case it has nothing to do with the WestJet tariffs as Transport Canada considers it a completely separate airline with it's own operating certificate and filed tariffs with the CTA.
So now we established that Swoop is legally bound by its
transborder tariff to issue refunds for
transborder flights they cancelled, even in the case of force majeure. However they are refusing to issue refunds, even for those transborder flights.
That's a conclusion to the point I was trying to make and you were trying futilely to rebut:
Airlines refusing to issue refunds even if they were legally bound to do so by contract law, consumer protection law as well as by their own tariffs(!) . Whether it's about Swoop, Westjet or any other airline doesn't matter. Because once you start with the case of Swoop's refusal to honour its transborder tariff, it's not so surprising to see other airlines refusing to refund despite their legal obligations. We see this in Europe as well where airlines there too are refusing to refund despite the European Commission's unequivocal guidance that stated airlines bound by EU261 rules must refund for covid-19 related cancellations.
Airlines are not issuing the refunds they owe to clients because they think they can get away with that policy and it maximizes shareholders holder's value, their ultimate mission well above any moral or ethical, considerations. They break the law and violate clients rights if they think they can get away with it and it benefits their bottom line.
What's very reprehensible in this refusal to refund issue is the attitude of the airlines of not admitting any liability or moral or legal duty to refund (as per the advice of their lawyers and PR people?)
If the airlines came clean publicly and admitted that they cannot pay clients their rightful refunds because it would lead to certain collapse, even more serious national economic difficulties, and if they promised to compensate the clients when business gets better, most clients would understand and be willing to compromise.
However the airlines' attitudes and public statements is so arrogant. They treat the customers like beggars: "here's a voucher that we hope you won't be able to use or maximize, take it and bugger off or leave it and bugger off as well."