Canada’s transport regulator, the Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA), is buried under a massive backlog of more than 57,000 air passenger complaints.
As shared by CTV News, the number of pending complaints has reached a new all-time high, with an average of more than 3,000 complaints per month in the past year, according to the latest data. The current number of complaints is more than three times higher than the total from September 2022.
The announcement of $76 million in funding for the CTA was shared back in April. The funding was to assist the CTA in clearing its backlog, and hire roughly 200 more employees “to handle complaints and improve procedures” over the next three years. However, the backlog has only gotten bigger since April.
In June, the federal government passed legislation to overhaul Canada’s air passenger rights charter, which aims to strengthen penalties and close loopholes for airlines that violate traveller rights. The new rules also seek to simplify and speed up the complaint process for consumers.
The amendments to the passenger rights charter allow the CTA to increase the maximum penalty for airline violations by tenfold to $250,000 and put the regulatory cost of complaints on the Airlines.
Image credit: Shutterstock
Source: CTV News
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