Groups seeking compensation for air passengers say 'volume is tremendous'

Services that protect Canadians travelling by air say many of the passengers on these flights don’t know what they’re entitled to. “Our goal is to empower passengers to know their rights, to know how to enforce their rights," Gabor Lukacs, President, Air Passenger Rights said. Lukacs runs not-for-profit group Air Passenger Rights. His team of volunteers take on the public’s complaints and try to steer them in the right direction for compensation for things like damaged luggage, delayed or cancelled flights. “The vast majority of the cases we are seeing in the group are very troubling where the airlines are blatantly disregarding the laws," Lukacs said. In 2008, Lukacs started challenging airlines legally. He eventually registered his not-for-profit in 2019. He also recognized what he calls a breakthrough moment of how airlines treated passengers during the pandemic. “The airline is trying to misappropriate passenger’s money, not giving them refunds for flights that the airlines themselves cancelled. There was this massive public outcry and this sense of large scale injustice," Lukacs said. Lukacs also advocates to the federal government for policy changes and has testified to several courts and tribunals. He hopes eventually the majority of the public will know their general rights for travelling. “This is just the beginning. Of course my goal would be to make myself obsolete," Lukacs said. Lukacs says he enjoys the not-for-profit approach to help focus on major and unique cases, and to continue staying involved in advocacy. He would like to see some type of Canadian air passenger rights framework similar to the European Union’s protection regime. There’s also for profit groups trying to help passengers. Airfairness officially launched in May 2023. It’s aimed at helping customers understand what they can claim and navigate how to do it.<br/>