Canada: Airline industry claims traveller safety at risk with proposed passenger rights rules

Aviation companies are making the pitch to Ottawa that stricter rules designed to boost customer compensation and improve service could put passenger safety at risk — an argument consumer advocates reject as “ridiculous.” The push, made in regulatory submissions and meetings on Parliament Hill, comes on the heels of sweeping reforms to the passenger rights charter announced in April and currently being hashed out by Canada’s transport regulator before going into effect next year. The changes appear to scrap a loophole through which airlines have denied customers compensation for flight delays or cancellations when they were required for safety purposes. The sector wants that exemption restored, and says pilots shouldn’t feel pressured to choose between flying defective planes and costing their employer money. “We want our pilots to be entirely free from any financial consideration when they take a safety-related decision,” WestJet CE Alexis von Hoensbroech said in a video chat from Ottawa this week, where he was meeting with federal ministers on the reforms. The Air Line Pilots Association raised similar concerns in a submission to the Canadian Transportation Agency. “Regulation should never be punitive for safety decisions,” the CEO said,adding that the would-be changes will drain carriers of cash after a financially devastating COVID-19 pandemic. In the European Union, however, where rules and precedents comparable to the impending passenger rights charter are in place, flight safety remains uncompromised, advocates say. “Did it make it less safe to fly in Europe? I don’t think so,” said Sylvie De Bellefeuille, a lawyer with the advocacy group Option consommateurs.<br/>