FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Master thread Air Canada Refunds vs credits; Class action lawsuit filed

Apr 4, 2020 | 12:57 pm

#73

Transpacificflyer

Join Date: May 2012

Location: BKK/YYZ/YUL

Programs: DL, AC SE, Bonvoy, Centara, Hyatt

Posts: 3,230

Quote:

Originally Posted by Adam Smith

First of all, there's no need for your antagonism, nor your condescension. I'm not "defending" AC. I'm merely pointing out that you're treating this issue as black and white, when it's very grey. You're using 20/20 hindsight to say that all sorts of things were clear when they were volatile and uncertain.

Flights to Italy were allowed right up until they weren't. AC didn't know what flights it was going to operate until the bans came in. Until flights were banned, they were permitted, so should AC not have been allowed to sell seats on those flights? In mid-February, do you think AC knew that it would be allowed to operate to FCO on March 13th (or whatever the last day was), but not on the 14th? In many cases, governments didn't even make these decisions until hours or minutes before they were announced. In some cases, they didn't even really know what they were announcing when they announced them (hello, US ban on flights from Europe). So how do you expect an airline to know what a government is going to do?

I don't see it as AC's job (or any other airline's job) to put warnings on the website about things that people should be reading in the news anyway. Someone who purchased a ticket to FCO on March 1st for travel on March 15th, let's say, should have known that COVID-19 was a growing problem and that there was a risk. What would the warning have said? "Flights to Italy are at high risk of being cancelled because of COVID-19"? On what date should AC have started to display that? February 17th? 12th? 21st? March 2nd? I flew YUL-FCO on March 6th, and at that time, the number of cases in Italy outside of the hot zones in the north was tiny, and the talk was around how they were doing a good job of keeping the north quarantined and limiting the spread in the rest of the country. The next day, they realized the problem was much bigger than they thought, and announced that as of the 8th, they were closing all museums etc around the country. And a few days after that, total lock down nationwide. But you think that AC should have known about that two or three weeks earlier? I don't think they were surprised by the ban when it came, but I think it unreasonable and unrealistic that you expect them to have had such good foresight several weeks before.

I think you significantly underestimate how difficult these things are to predict and how fast they change. In addition to the Italy example above, my wife is a nurse in a quasi-management role at the ER of one of the hospitals in YYC. The other day, she was telling me about Alberta Health Services' model's prediction of the peak of cases in Calgary from the run earlier that day (which had changed a bunch from the previous day). Barely had she finished telling me that when she got an update on the afternoon/evening run, and the peak had shifted by nearly two weeks and number of cases at the peak changed significantly. In an environment as volatile as that, no business can have the level of certainty you're ascribing to AC.

Even if AC had put a warning on the website that flights to some of these locations, or even all flights, were at higher risk of being cancelled due to COVID-19, what do you think that would have done? Someone booking a ticket to FCO on March 1st for travel on March 17th, do you think a little red warning box on the AC website would have changed their purchasing decision? Someone buying a YYC-YVR for April 18th? Let's get real, a little box in red text warning about COVID-19 wasn't going to tell them anything they didn't know.

AC is at fault for refusing to refund customers' money after cancelling their flights. That's a decision that's in their control and doesn't rely on some crystal ball. And it really doesn't matter when those tickets were purchased (unless it was on or after March 19th, when one could argue that customers were forewarned that there would be 24-month credits instead of refunds for involuntary cancellations). That's really the issue here.
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The issue is not grey because the Canadian courts have already established that;
1. An entity which engages in an activity of specialized expertise is held to a higher standard of care than a layperson. Air Canada is in the business of air transportation. The subject of pandemics and the potential for travel suspension was both known to the airline and should have been modeled for by the airline.

2. Whether or not an activity is "legal" , does not relieve a person or an organization of the duty of care.

This is not hindsight. The people who had hands on experience in the last SARS epidemic had warned what would happen. Airlines had modeled for this event using the SARS and H1N1 flu experience. This was not a "surprise". Do not confuse, our collective failure to have been prepared with an event that could not be anticipated.

Yes, there were some people who had dismissed the infection. We even saw it in the forum with one person who kept insisting this was much ado about nothing. However, this does not relieve a company of its duty of care. The USA instituted travel restrictions at the end of January. There had been pressure to do this weeks earlier. Once the travel restrictions started to apply, that in itself heightened the obligation to read the airline pandemic plan. Anyone who has read the most basic of pandemic plans would have known travel restrictions and bans would be implemented once the infections took off.

Your defense assumes that Air Canada was an innocent party, a victim. I counter that the airline has a long history of intentionally not investing in IROPS and crisis planning. Look at what happens during a weather disruption. It's always the same outcome because of inadequate staffing, cancellations with no response , long call center waits etc. The justification given is that the events are infrequent and that it is not cost effective to have a capability to respond in a timely manner. Air Canada calculates the cost of risk that attaches to such a position. The disorganized response to the travel restrictions and the ongoing sale of tickets, is IMO just another manifestation of the Air Canada business model. Yes, I do appreciate that this was an extraordinary event and that the airline was overwhelmed. This is why there was even more justification for a phased scaling back of operations. The airline did not do that. I read this week that the airline has now provided its employees with appropriate safety garments. Nothing like a couple months delay. The customer service failures along with the refusal to refund airfares in a timely manner are a direct outcome of business management decisions that did not appear to consider the impact of a pandemic. AC responded in the same way it does when there is a snow storm. The difference here is that this wasn't something that went away after a week or so.

I again emphasize my belief that Air Canada was aware of the impact of a pandemic and that the modeling methods and scenario analyses were known right down to the potential for obligatory flight cancellations. I see your comment about the modeling of patients. Note that the health system models rely on different data sets. The business model projects business impact from a pandemic. Comparing outcomes is not a valid comparison. The airline pandemic models were big picture scenarios. For example, if we take one of the older plans for pandemic like the US government's 2006 Flu Pandemic plan, the reference to travel restrictions is very obvious; Measures to limit domestic travel may delay the spread of disease. These restrictions could include a range of options, such as reductions in non-essential travel and, as a last resort, mandatory restrictions. This is why modeling plans would have included a worst case scenario of mandatory restrictions.

You state that you " don't see it as AC's job (or any other airline's job) to put warnings on the website about things that people should be reading in the news anyway"

I will leave to people to consider such a position, but that is not particularly reassuring. The "news" did mention travel restrictions. It also mentioned that airlines had been providing refunds on cancelled flights. It is not an unreasonable leap of faith that consumers who would purchase an airline ticket would expect that the airline would honour the contract of sale or at the very least refund the airfare in a prompt and timely manner if the flight was cancelled.

Your argument allows for a company to behave in a dishonest manner. (I am not accusing AC of dishonesty, but am pointing out that the argument supports dishonesty.) Your defense would allow an airline to sell a ticket, then cancel the ticket and offer the customer a "credit" for a portion of the unused portion, all the while holding on to the money (the float). A cynic might call that "kiting". The method is unfair because the customer had contracted to fly at a specific time, and more importantly, the Air Canada credits typically have an expiration date. There is no certainty that Air Canada customers who have these settlements will be fairly compensated or will even be able to collect the monies owed.

I don't believe that Air Canada has acted in good faith and that it would be more appropriate if the airline was transparent and just admitted that it doesn't have the liquidity to pay, and that it asks for customers' understanding. Most people would help or be patient if the airline wasn't giving the impression of screwing around.