Transport Canada – Massimo Bergamini

PASSENGER RIGHTS TURBULENCE PREDICTABLE

February 16, 2020 Massimo Bergamini

When Canada’s air passenger rights regime was announced last May, Transport Minister Marc Garneau called the new rules “world leading”, but recent confusion and consumer frustration around what the rules actually cover suggest that the minister’s self-congratulations might have been premature.

In a move reminiscent of a building contractor who tells a dissatisfied customer to take it to the Better Business Bureau, the Transport minister’s response to the growing confusion and frustration has been to advise travellers “who feel that they did not get an adequate response,” to complain to the Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA). Transport Minister Marc Garneau

A CBC report of passengers being denied compensation for delayed or cancelled flights prompted Canadian Automobile Association (CAA) spokesperson Ian Jack to comment, “If the [passenger rights] system were working properly, people wouldn’t be feeling this level of frustration”.

But Mr. Jack should not have been surprised by the turbulence hitting the government’s passenger rights regulations. It was totally predictable; the result of a rushed process designed to meet a political timetable and agenda — in this case, last fall’s federal election.

In representations made last year to the CTA, to whom the minister had given responsibility for drafting the regulations, the National Airlines Council of Canada (NACC) warned that the government’s rush to regulate passenger rights by July 1, 2019 would produce “rules that reduce[d] consumer protection and convenience through higher fares, reduced service, and market confusion”.

While the government ultimately agreed to delay implementation of the more complex elements of the new rules by five months, this was not nearly enough time for airlines to train thousands of staff and roll out new systems.

NACC had cautioned that the draft regulations not only lacked the clarity needed by airlines to translate them into day-to-day commercial practices but they were often at odds with global airline operating realities. In practice this meant that implementation would be more difficult because of new airline systems and procedures that would be required.

Pointing to troubling parallels with the government’s disastrous rush t o implement Phoenix, its still-not-functioning payroll system, NACC urged the minister to delay implementation in order to give the CTA time to get the new rules right and industry time to ramp up.

As much as Marc Garneau might want to deflect consumer dissatisfaction by getting unhappy travellers to complain to the CTA, coming from the minister who rejected repeated industry warnings and who justified the regulations by saying they were needed to make air carriers treat their “passengers like people and not numbers”, this advice, like his regulations, falls well short of the mark.

PASSENGER RIGHTS: STOP THE COUNTDOWN

April 25, 2019 Massimo Bergamini

Responding to recent calls from Canadian air carriers, airports and even a leading Canadian labour union to postpone the July 1 launch of his passenger rights regulations, Transport Minister Marc Garneau told the CBC, “We’ve been working on this for over two years. I am anxious to get them out.”

If the minister’s impatience is understandable in the context of a looming general election, it is much less so if the goal is a passenger rights system that actually works.

And it’s not just Canadian air carriers warning that rushing implementation of his plan – which is yet to be finalized no less – will fail to achieve its intended goal of protecting consumers. IATA, which represents air carriers worldwide, and Airlines for America (A4A) also called on the government to slow down and get it right.

Not only do the draft regulations lack the clarity needed by airlines to translate them into day-to-day commercial practices but they are often at odds with global airline operating realities.

This is not an idle consideration.

In practice it means that implementation is made more difficult and time consuming because of new systems and procedures that would be required. More important, it also means that unless the government addresses some of the more glaring problems with the regulations, in some cases they could actually make things worse for travelers.

Whatever time it took the government to get the legislation through Parliament and the regulations drafted does nothing to justify a rush to implement them before their more glaring problems are fixed or with little consideration for their impact on the commercial airline industry and the passengers it serves.

Confronted with such haste, it is good to reflect on the teachable moment that the federal government’s 2016 decision to move all federal payroll functions to the ill-fated Phoenix pay system provides.

The parallel between the rushed implementation of the Phoenix pay system and the rush by the federal government to implement its passenger rights regime is instructive — both involve undue haste in the face of a complex undertaking.

In the case of the Phoenix pay system federal employees are still paying the price. Air travellers shouldn’t have to pay the price for the minister’s impatience.

And why the rush anyway?

Is there an overriding rationale for July 1^st beyond the obvious symbolism? Is air travel in Canada and globally in the throes of a market failure of such scope that exceptional measures are required immediately, even if not fully baked?

The answer is no.

Canadian air carriers move over 350,000 passengers domestically every day. That is almost the equivalent of the population of the City of Toronto – every woman, man and child – every week.

For the vast majority of these air travelers, the flight is as it should be: pleasant and uneventful, thanks to the efforts of tens of thousands of people working in airlines, airports, air traffic control, security, national governments and international agencies. And the vast majority of these air travelers will never once refer to the minister’s new rules in a dispute with an air carrier.

With less than 10 weeks left until the minister’s July 1 target date, time is running out. Airlines cannot begin changing information and communication systems, procedures and policies or developing training for tens of thousands of front-line and other employees before they even know for certain exactly what they will be required to do.

After spending over a billion dollars trying to fix its pay system and with over 200,000 federal employees still hurting, the federal government announced in its February Budget that it plans to phase-out Phoenix and start anew.

Unlike the government, air carriers and their passengers cannot afford a do-over. This is why we’re saying take the time to do it right.

As a former astronaut who flew three Shuttle missions, Minister Garneau knows better than most that impatience has no place in the planning or execution of a successful launch.

Even with the world watching, shuttle launches were delayed dozens of times in the course of their status check – proving that sometimes the greatest virtue is knowing when to say “no go”.

When the federal government ran into difficulties rolling out its legal cannabis program as planned on July 1, 2018, it did the right thing and delayed implementation for a few months.

Getting legal cannabis rules right was important — getting air travel regulations right is no less important.