Originally Posted by
Adam Smith
Many seem to forget that it took years for EU261 to become what it is now, as courts interpreted bits of the regulation that hadn't been fully fleshed out, such as what was with an airline's control and what was outside of it, as relates to things like maintenance.
While I agree that Canadian politicians aimed lower than they should have when crafting the regulations, there's still potential for some aspects to be clarified in consumers' favour.
AC's current ludicrous approach that nothing is their fault will hopefully be resoundingly rejected by the CTA and/or courts, and we'll establish some sort of useful precedent about what circumstances require the airline to pay out.
While I agree with both the analogy and sentiment here Adam, I also recognize that airlines like AC went out of their way to make sure that the APPR was born effectively toothless, and then tried to extract the few teeth it did have via legal actions as recent as April 2022 in the Federal Court of Appeal.
Now, with Air Canada yet again publicly thumbing their noses at the law of the land (coz COVID!), I would be shocked if the CTA (which is more trade group than anything else) has the wherewithal to effectively battle a large, belligerent corporation with far more resources.
I say belligerent deliberately, since Air Canada has made no secret about overtly instructing their minions to codify staff scheduling issues as safety-related in an attempt to avoid paying compensation, much as they did when refusing to give passenger’s money back for cancellations a while ago.
I am equally skeptical that Air Canada will refuse to honour the ‘new’ rules that the CTA is introducing in the Fall – or at least for the general masses.
We need to remind ourselves that we on Flyer Talk are an exceptional bunch.
Many of us here would gleefully pursue Air Canada for not providing what we think was either promised or owed to us by the airline, including taking legal action against them if necessary. This is less about “DYKWIA” than “Give me G**dam money!”. I feel this can sometimes be a disproportionate effort on our part for relatively small gains.
But while the squeaky wheel sometimes
does get the grease, the rest of the flying public will likely continue to get the shaft. After all, when has Air Canada ever
really cared about PR?
So yeah, the APPR might continue to incrementally evolve, but will AC feel a need to comply? Their corporate culture would seem to suggest “No”.