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More legal action is being taken against major Canadian airlines over decisions to provide passengers vouchers rather than refunds for COVID-19 cancelations.
A couple who had their all-inclusive honeymoon cancelled has filed a potential class action lawsuit after they were offered a credit instead of a refund. According to CityNews.Ca, the couple says Air Canada Vacations refused to refund their nearly $8,000 honeymoon after the airline cancelled their trip because of the coronavirus pandemic. The class action lawsuit is being filed against Air Canada, Air Transat, Sunwing, West Jet and their wholesale travel groups.
The Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) is also named in a case filed by Air Passenger Rights, a passenger advocacy group, claiming CTA inappropriately took the side of the airlines offering vouchers instead of refunds to passengers who had to cancel their flights. The Canadian airlines named in the class action lawsuit are improperly taking the agency’s statements on vouchers “as if it were a legally binding ruling, which it is not,” said a representative for CTA in a statement to City News reporters.
The Canadian Transportation Agency lawsuit says the agency sided with the airlines in an online statement that said “a fair and sensible balance between passenger protection and airlines’ operational realities” was struck regarding vouchers, “an appropriate approach in the current context could be for airlines to provide affected passengers with vouchers or credits for future travel,” continued the agency’s statement.
According to Air Passenger Rights, this statement implies that the agency has made its mind up about whether vouchers or refunds are appropriate for COVID-19 canceled air travel.
“The CTA appears to have already made up its mind on the question without ever hearing the evidence or arguments of the passengers,” an advocacy group representative told reporters.
For its part, the Canadian Transportation Agency told City News reporters that its online statement regarding vouchers should not be interpreted as legally binding. According to the agency, the statement is merely an attempt to “provide guidance in a situation without precedent.”
In addition, the agency pointed out that agency representatives cannot “publicly express an opinion” about pending lawsuits over concerns that they may “create a reasonable apprehension of bias.”
The Canadian Transportation Agency lawsuit filed by Air Passenger Rights is seeking a court order regarding the legality of the statement made by the agency about vouchers in the midst of COVID-19.
What Passengers Should Do If Their Trip is Cancelled
The plaintiff in the Canadian Transportation Agency lawsuit, Air Passenger Rights, recommends that passengers who are offered a voucher for cancelled flight plans refuse. They should also not agree to anything with the airline regarding a voucher by phone or online. Instead passengers should dispute the charge from the airline on their credit card, if possible.
There are a number of other ways to secure a refund, rather than a voucher, according to the advocacy group. The first is to refer to the terms of the contract the passenger agreed to when purchasing the ticket. This strategy is mainly effective when a refundable, often pricey, ticket is purchased.
Another situation in which the refundability of the ticket is clearer, is when the airline cancels the flight or otherwise fails to provide the services contracted for by the passenger.
Finally, Air Passenger Rights says that refunds are due to passengers when “unforeseeable circumstances prevent performance of the contract (e.g., a public health authority advisory against travel abroad).”
“The government’s advisory against travel abroad and the COVID-19 pandemic is an unforeseeable circumstance that makes it impossible to perform the contract for travel services, such as flights and vacation packages,” states the advocacy group’s website, continuing “…it means that you are owed a refund of all unused services.”
The advocacy group says that in the above situations, passengers should not be charged cancellation fees and should receive a full refund for their ticket.
According to Air Passenger Rights, passengers should take the following steps to increase their chances to get a refund.
- Record interactions with airlines and travel agents, including hold times
- Be sure to contact the contracting entity, usually the airline, rather than a travel agent or online booking site
- Be polite, firm, and professional when contacting airlines and other companies
- Communicate that a refund is required under law and further action will be taken if a refund is not issued
- If the airline or company refuses to issue a refund, dispute the charge on your credit card and/or consider legal action in small claims court
There has already been another class action lawsuit lodged against Canadian airlines over the refusal to issue refunds for COVID-19 restrictions on air travel. The same airlines are being sued by a Vancouver woman who alleges she booked a trip to New York with WestJet in April of this year. She says that she and other consumers who are unable to travel due to COVID-19 restrictions are entitled to a refund under the terms of their ticket purchases.
Do you think Canadian airlines should offer full refunds to passengers who cannot travel due to COVID-19 restrictions? Have you been offered a voucher rather than a refund for air travel you had to cancel due to coronavirus? Tell us your story in the comment section below!
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8 thoughts onCanadian Airlines Facing More Legal Action in an Effort to Get Passengers’ Refunds
I was taking my kids and grandkids on a Disney cruise which left from Vancouver. We booked west jet for 5 people at the cost of 2500.00. When the cruise was cancelled, I called west jet and they encouraged me to cancel and take vouchers. I repeatedly told them I wanted my money back, but they said not to worry and eventually we would get the cash returned.
It has been 15 months, 12 telephone calls and we were informed that since we cancelled the flights they would not refund the money. We now have worthless vouchers and still cannot enter Canada from the US. We were also told that we could use the vouchers on delta airlines. When I tried to do that today, I was told that they were only good on flights from Canada.
Obviously, we cannot go to Canada. The borders are closed.
I would like to join a class action lawsuit. Can anyone advise me.
We booked and paid for our plane fares February 13, 2020. We also purchased a premium insurance policy at the same time to cover us for the 21 days (July 29 -Aug 19, 2020) for travel and medical during the time we would be in the USA. Total cost: $2051.16 We booked through a trusted travel agent that I had used before. We used a credit card and looked forward to a trip that included a visit to an 88 year old aunt in Quebec, family in Thunder Bay and a 3 day blues concert in Deluth, Minn. Then Covid 19 happened. We asked the travel agent to cancel our trip in March once it became apparent that it was the responsible thing to do. Since then we have made numerous attempts to get our money returned, but all we get are excuses. Supposedly Westjet offered us a full refund in the form of a credit. We have never been offered anything from anyone. And no one has been able to produce that offer. Nor have we seen any money. We have no plans to travel by air in the near future and definitely not with Westjet. We would like to add our names to any class action against Westjet. Please notify me how to do this. Thank you for your help.
We had a vacation booked with Sunwing to the DR for March 20th and like a lot of people we cancelled, due to the fear of Covid on March 16, the morning of March 17th we saw on the news all flights out of Canada were cancelled, Sunwing issued us a travel voucher , we had booked this flight on a credit card that had travel insurance, or so I thought, but I like others, got caught in read the small print, “they do not cover trip cancellation, just trip interruption”, however in the booklet that came with the card, it stated that if there is a global pandemic and you are unable to travel etc.etc.etc, We were disheartened as with a voucher from Sunwing, we have to fly again, we are not sure if we will ever feel safe enough to fly again, to travel south, what happens if the company does not survive this and goes bankrupt, there are so many unanswered questions, we feel that the airlines should offer full refund to all those affected by this situation and wish to include our names on the lawsuit thank you
Hi there,
I have had very bad experience with airtransat as a costumer.
I have lost thausends of dollars becouse of their fault.
Last year they did not alow me to use my two travel/fly tickets from Toronto to Europ and they never accepted to give my money back.
The second experience was two years ago : that time i n stead of going to Brussels , Belgium the fly ended up in Paris France, as a result i mised my second fly and had to bay another flying ticket causing me thausends of dollars los.
My question is : is this class action for this category of lost caused by airtransat incompetent and unprofesional conduct toward its costumers or is just for the costumers who lost money during covid-19 period..?
Thank you in advance for answerin my concerns.
Aaron
aaronssmith9@gmail.com
our beef is with air canada cancelling our flight back to canada and then charging people 5 times the price to fly back the very same day as our cancelled flight and just to toronto, will never forget they have put my family at risk and still no refunds and would gladly join a class action against them for punitive damages, lost wages and stress of being abandoned in a foreign country, what a mess they are and deserve to be liquidated, I’ll take a plane as compensation!!!!!
While I am furious enough about the fact that WestJet only gave us a voucher instead of cash I am more upset over the fact that WestJet wouldn’t allow us to make any changes to our flight online , wouldn’t answer any emails etc. after much worry we decided we would just book a flight with Alaska air to get home from Mexico. It was a good thing we did. After receiving a message from the government telling us that we must leave we were really panicked. We had already been trying for a week to get home with no help from Westjet . So we ended up booking the flight to get home only to find out that the next day WestJet put a bunch of seats on sale for probably double what we paid for our entire trip coming down in first class and sold them to whoever had the money fast enough , they weren’t even offered to their own customers that they had flown down with return tickets booked.
The day we returned home which was three weeks earlier than our original flight we received a message from WestJet telling us that due to unforeseen Circumstances our flight had been cancelled and they had no options available for us And we would need to try to make some other arrangements to get home But they could sell those seats for absolutely ridiculous prices to one of our neighbours in our building who didn’t even have a return flight booked with WestJet but they were willing to pay $1300 so they didn’t care. We had no notice those flights were Going to be available
I have used WestJet consistently for 20 years. Never have I been so Upset with an airline. It was a week of hell trying to get out of there and when we found out that WestJet had sold The return seats to people that didn’t even come down on WestJet it’s made me sick. Westjet you should be ashamed of yourselves. You’re all about the almighty buck just like everyone else and I’ve always defended you said that you were the best airline there is . Obviously I was wrong you no different than any of the other money gouging airlines. But I will say Alaska airlines came through for us and we’re just amazing customer service. But WestJet I’m disgusted with you .
I kept any correspondence that I did get from WestJet which was practically nothing except for the letter I received after I got home. And of course the check in notice we received for our flight for April 9 when we had already been home for three weeks at that point? It was a shameful ploy on WestJet and gouging for seat fares, With absolutely no emails or correspondence to any of their very confused clients. Pretty sure that they will have lost a lot of travellers over this.
I was just reading your complaint, that is absolutely awful and understandably I would be angry as well, I hope that you are able to get some satisfaction out of this
So today, after more than two weeks of trying to get through, waiting on the phone for hours, emails between myself, Air Canada and Expedia, phone calls back and forth between myself and Expedia and Air Canada, I finally reached a lady, from Expedia, who informed me that she would try to help me. After waiting 27 minutes on the phone, as she looked up my case (itinerary), I was told that they do not provide refunds however she would try to issue me a credit for future travel and that it was discussed with the airline. They will not reimburse you but, would instead, provide a credit voucher to be used at a later date. I regularly forwarded copies of my emails to Mr. Garneau’s office, and have kept copies of that as well. I kept a copy of the phone call With Expedia, and,I have copies of all (almost all 99%) of my emails with Expedia and Air Canada but I have been made aware that there are no refunds. I have been made aware of the passengers bill of rights and I thought this would qualify under these rules, since we the “public” had no control over this situation, however no one seem to care or comment.
I would love to know if anyone is thinking of taking these people to court to see if a refund is possible.