Flair slammed for ignoring law on re-booking cancellation passengers

NAB_Photography/Shutterstock | Jessica Quiring/Submitted

Canadian air travellers and their advocates are slamming Flair Airlines for refusing to re-book passengers on competitors’ flights during cancellations — and the federal government for failing to enforce the law.

Canada’s Air Passenger Protection Regulations (APPR) state that in the event of a flight cancellation within the airline’s control, a large carrier such as Flair must re-book a passenger on its next flight leaving within nine hours of the original departure time.

If the carrier doesn’t have one of its own flights leaving within nine hours, it’s legally obligated to re-book the passenger on another airline with which it has a commercial agreement.

If neither of those are possible, the carrier must re-book the passenger on any airline as soon as feasible, whether or not there’s a commercial agreement in place. The new flight must leave within 48 hours of the original departure time.

Airlines can also book a passenger on a route that takes off from or lands at a nearby airport to the original itinerary, provided they pay for ground transportation.

But in reality, that’s not what’s happening.

Suzanne Zyla was supposed to fly from Fort Fort Lauderdale to Kitchener-Waterloo with Flair this summer. But earlier this month, she checked her online profile to see the flight was missing.

Flair told her the flight had been cancelled as it consolidated its summer schedule, and claimed that, since it gave her more than 14 days’ notice, it didn’t need to rebook her. The airline tried to issue Zyla a refund in the form of a travel credit with a one-year expiry.

She provided recordings of her phone conversation with a Flair agent about the issue, who told her Flair’s policy is to only re-book customers if a cancellation happens within 24 hours of the flight departing.

“I’m shocked that they’re allowed to operate and not comply with the law,” Zyla said. “It’s stressful… It makes me angry, being ignored.”

Daily Hive has reached out to the Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) to ask about the timeframe in which APPR cancellation rules apply.

Ross Howey Photo/Shutterstock

Jessica Quiring also experienced issues with Flair not following the law this month. She’s a student who attends university in Calgary and was flying home to Abbotsford, BC, for reading week when Flair cancelled her flight roughly half an hour before it was supposed to take off.

The Flair agent she spoke with said they couldn’t do anything except put her on another one of their own flights leaving 48 to 72 hours later.

Quiring read out section 17 of Canada’s Air Passenger Protection Regulations stating that Flair must re-book on another airline, but the agent refused.

She ended up paying out-of-pocket for a Lynx flight leaving that day. But once aboard her replacement flight, she met somebody else who’d been on the cancelled Flair flight. He said his Flair agent had rebooked him on the Lynx flight at no charge.

“Some say you book cheap, you get cheap. But I don’t think that’s an excuse to be stranded,” Quiring said.

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Air passenger rights advocate Gábor Lukács told Daily Hive he’s disappointed Flair continues to flout the law, and that the federal government isn’t doing much in the way of enforcement.

He added Flair isn’t the only Canadian airline dodging its rebooking responsibilities either — he’s heard similar stories from other major carriers.

Flair was designated a large carrier for APPR purposes in January 2024, but Lukács pointed out that its tariffs still align with its responsibilities as a small carrier, and haven’t been updated to reflect its mandate to rebook customers on any airline in the event of a cancellation.

Gábor Lukács/Submitted

Lukács has complained to the CTA about the issue but says nothing has been done yet.

“They are getting away with, for more than a month, displaying false and misleading information with the tacit approval of the federal regulator,” Lukács said

He wants the CTA to issue fines for airlines that break the rules, saying that if an airline were handed a $25,000 penalty for disobeying the APPR, they’d soon stop doing it.

The lack of enforcement often leaves passengers with small claims court as their only recourse. It’s a time-consuming initiative that Lukács argues was never intended to be the primary method to seek justice from airlines with “flagrant disregard of the law,” as he puts it.

He wants Flair, other airlines, and the federal government to be held accountable so Canadians can access the air travel protections they’re entitled to under the law.

“The laws are there, but enforcement is virtually nonexistent,” Lukács said. “It’s just so obvious that what is happening here is wrong.”

Daily Hive has reached out to the CTA and Flair Airlines for comment.

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