bcnfish

I submitted one December 24th, heard back January 25th.

They denied stating that: ​This flight was delayed due to air traffic constraints outside of our control.

Which goes against the stated delay on board by the pilot. He made an announcement that we were slow to leave the gate because of delays in baggage loading and waiting for some extra cargo. That minor delay then caused me to miss my connection and arrive 4 hours late.

I'm pretty sure that the pilot onboard the aircraft at the time of the incident has a more accurate view of why the flight was delayed. But what else am I to do other than claim that AC is lying when logging delays in order to avoid paying compensation?? Pretty frustrating

shcboomer

Finally heard back today from a claim I submitted back on November 20, 2022. To nobody's surprise, they claimed the delays were outside of their control and offered a $300 eCoupon. I submitted an email back requesting the due compensation. We'll see what happens from here.

annehamnitz

Just got a so sorry e-coupon for a delayed flight for which they claim no responsibility
Of course, also got an etransfer last month for the same flight as AC acknowledged responsibility

Incompetence sometimes works in my favour

M60_to_LGA

I submitted a claim last night and just got an email declining my claim and offering me a voucher. So took less than 18 hours for me

YYC009

In fairness, if this was at an airport with a GDP or similar, the late loading of baggage and cargo could very well have been because the ramp crew was tied up working a previous flight due to the overall off scheduled nature of the airport operations with the root cause of such being the air traffic control constraints. Hence their late arrival to load luggage on your flight and the 'delays in baggage loading'. While I understand customers hate hearing this, many times the announcements indicate the last issue affecting the delayed flight, which is not necessarily the root cause.

isaacchambers

Unfortunately, AC doesn’t have any accountability with any oversight authority. I’ve had mechanical issues on my 23 December flight leading to a swap that took forever due to no ground crew and then the pilots all times out after waiting 3 hours for baggage handlers that never came. It took
me three days to get home after subsequently cancelled my rebooked flights on Christmas Eve. I fully expect them to say weather caused no one showing up for work to get out of it. But we will see. I fully expect 1000cad compensation. I deserve it. But AC can blame anything.

AC will get Euro style regulations come in due to thier lack of transparency and trust.

zappy312

Adding my two cents. I'm not a fan of Gabor's nuclear option, I prefer to send stuff through the CTA, as slow and ineffective as they are. There's no cost to you, no risk, and the CTA makes it very passenger friendly. You can explain what happened in simple (and brief words), and they'll refer to relevant case law to determine the outcome.

That being said, they're very clogged up right now with something like 30,000 cases, and an 18+ month wait. But as someone who doesn't want to go through the efforts of court, I'm happy to throw my complaint in the CTA pile, in hopes the APPR will get fixed one day.

I don't believe there's any websites for Canada (yet). AirHelp did make some submissions to the CTA for APPR related matters, but AFAIK they're not doing Canadian claim processing yet. It's likely not worth their effort given the airlines' attempts to fight any rulings by the CTA for compensation.

cmill007

I've never put anything through CTA, but have had reasonably good luck simply responding to the denial when I'm certain or nearly certain I'm in the right. On at least 3 occasions I was denied this year. In one it was denied altogether. The other two it was denied but I was offered $100 vouchers.

I responded with a lengthy email detailing my point of view and concluded by thinly implying escalation would be my next step. I stay polite but make it clear I know they're being disingenuous or that perhaps they've simple made a mistake as "mistakes happen".

One they doubled down on in their response. I took the L. In both the other two they responded with $500 vouchers. Was good enough for me (even though one was probably a $1000-eligible case). All told, the few minutes work responding and the (relatively) immediate gratification was worth more to me than a 1-2 year wait for potentially getting more comp.

Davvidd

Aren't the government changing the air passenger rights act now? I am sure that I saw something like that.

Altaflyer

They’ve been in power how many years? I doubt it will be much of an improvement….proof will be in the pudding as they say.

Bohemian1

An (almost) easy fix - Have the CTA actually issue some of the fines that they should be assessing, and use the proceeds from that to hire enough staff and/or invest in some systems to speed up claims processing.

Of course, nothing is ever that easy, and AC has proven that they are more than happy to spend money on lawyers to fight any regulations, no matter how anemic.

CA_Traffic

Just heard back from the APPR claim I submitted for a flight on Dec24 that ended up arriving 4+ hrs late. Full denial, no voucher offered. Stated reason: The flight was delayed due to customer processing issues. That's a new one to me, and I struggle to see how that's out of their control, although the email goes on to say the APPR explicitly states that reason is outside their control (which I'm pretty sure is more AC's interpretation than anything in the wording of the reg). I mean, sure, maybe security could've been backed up and caused some passengers to be late, but at the end of the day it's ACs decision whether to leave without them or not. (and there's no way a 4-hour delay was being cause by a few folks stuck at the CATSA line)

I guess the next step is to reply to the email detailing my objection, and take it from there?

MillennialMiles

Just heard back from the APPR claim I submitted for a flight on Dec20 (YYC-YYZ onboard A330 reg as C-GEGP) that ended up arriving 3+ hrs late. Full denial, no voucher offered. Stated reason: The flight was delayed due to unforeseen maintenance that does not include scheduled maintenance or mechanical problems identified during scheduled maintenance. Immediately after they said it was "within their control" but not eligible to receive any compensation.

Too bad the notes aren't available on EF for longer than 7 days. iirc they didn't say much but I did record Pilot saying the delay was from loading cargo even though the flight was delayed 2.5 hrs from YYZ after flying to FLL and back.

Not sure what to do but might push a bit to see what I can get

Adam Smith

Please note that a number of posts stemming from an incident of AA re-booking a passenger on AC metal have been deleted as they were off topic - this thread is regarding claiming APPR compensation from Air Canada. If you have had an incident with another carrier, please visit that carrier's forum. For a general discussion of APPR, the Canada forum is the appropriate venue.

Adam Smith
AC Forum Moderator

makin'miles

This week, I filed a small claims lawsuit against AC in Quebec court (mostly online, with documents sent by UPS). I had a 19 hour delay last July. They indicated that it was due to "impacts of COVID-19" including staffing shortages and government entry requirements. There were no government entry requirements in place that forced a cancellation from Montreal to the NE USA last summer (they operated other flights on the route earlier that day)... it was clearly staffing shortages.

When I requested compensation, they indicated that it was due to "safety" - several weeks later. Uh huh...

I have a feeling I have a deposit coming my way in the next couple of weeks, but I'll let you know.

I know punitive damages aren't normally awarded in Small Claims, but when there's evidence that a company is intentionally flouting the law, it can be done. Personally, I think that given the behavior of Canadian airlines over the past months, they should be required to pay three or four times the compensation amount when they initially deny a claim but its later found by the CTA or a court to be founded...