Air Canada Retirement Benefits Class Action Lawsuit Filed Over Flight Passes

Air Canada is facing a class action lawsuit alleging the employer wrongfully prioritized flight passes for active employees over retirees and treating the benefit as a privilege instead of an obligation.

According to the retirement benefits class action lawsuit, Air Canada had promised FRT flight passes that automatically vested after the first six months of employment and continued throughout their employment and during their retirement years.

Air Canada had reportedly honored the FRT flight passes since at least 1952 until it recently changed its policy.

“This FRT flight pass benefit was always considered by employees as an important liberality of their career in the airline industry and of their eventual retirement,” plaintiff Walter Edward Davies says in the Air Canada retirement benefits class action lawsuit.

“It was a ‘fact of life’; if you worked at Air Canada, you then had the benefit of free travel both before and after retirement,” Walter alleges. He worked for Air Canada for 35 years before he retired.

Although the FRT flight pass benefit has not been mentioned in any labour agreements, the benefit has reportedly been mentioned in job postings as well as pre-retirement handbooks and seminars. They are available to all Air Canada employees in the form of C2 passes, Walter claims.

Air Canada has recently changed its policy to prioritize current employees for flight passes “to the point that the C2 passes no longer fulfill the requisites to permit a Retiree to reasonably enjoy the use of the FRT flight passes,” the Air Canada retirement benefits class action lawsuit alleges.

“Historically, priority for the use of these FRT flight passes was determined by the length of service as an employee of [Air Canada],” and the number of years of service with the airline would determine their seating priority in economy or business class when using the FRT flight passes, according to Walter.

Walter claims that it was his understanding “that his boarding priority would increase with time and as he got older and worked longer it would be easier for him to board and travel with the FRT flight passes.”

Instead, he says Air Canada has “significantly eroded seniority priority by granting higher priority passes to certain categories of its active employees.” As a result, he says “access to seats has now been drastically reduced or for all practical purposes is now unavailable, including the ability to be upgraded to business class.”

Walter says that retirees are now getting “bumped” from their flights by active employees, even those who have little seniority, frustrating retirees’ travel plans. As a result, retirees are allegedly faced with missed flights and connections, and run the risk of ending their travel plans early, or becoming stranded in another city.

Air Canada employees can now use their priority passes at any time, including boarding, whereas in the past there had reportedly been a 24 hour restriction that allowed retirees to evaluate their chances of getting on a flight. Now, it is not unheard of for retirees to learn that they have been bumped when they are already waiting at the gate, Walter alleges.

According to the Air Canada retirement benefits class action lawsuit, an employee with as little as seven months of service can bump a retiree with several decades of service from a flight.

Walter alleges that nearly 38,000 employees now have greater priority than retirees, and hold 189,135 passes.

“Each pass entitles the holder to travel with 4 other family members or friends, so the potential of people who can ‘bump’ a Retiree holding a C2 pass without warning at the departure gate, is an astronomical figure of 945,675,” the Air Canada retirement benefits class action lawsuit asserts.

To make matters worse, Air Canada has reportedly acquired Air Transat, which has about 5,000 employees, and Aimia Canada Inc., which has about 550 employees. Walter is concerned that these additional employees will also be offered priority passes and increase the chance that retirees who attempt to use their passes will be bumped from a flight.

Walter says that most Air Canada employees were drawn to the airline industry because they love to travel, and the flight passes were an important benefit for them. According to the Air Canada class action lawsuit, many employees forfeited their full pension in order to retire early and enjoy traveling with the flight benefits.

The Air Canada retirement benefits class action lawsuit asks the court to declare that the flight passes are a benefit of employment and retirement and therefore cannot be unilaterally modified to the putative Class Members’ detriment. Walter seeks an order that employee flight passes will not have priority over retirees’ flight passes when traveling for personal purposes.

The Air Canada flight pass class action lawsuit also seeks compensatory damages, and punitive and/or exemplary damages.

Walter is represented by Michael Heller of Heller and Associates.

The Air Canada Class Action Lawsuit is Walter Edward Davies v. Air Canada, Case No. 500-06-0001039-201, in the Superior Court of Quebec, Canada.

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