The controversy over whether airlines owed refunds to passengers after cancelling hundreds of thousands of flights during the pandemic continues to simmer four years on, aggravated by a sluggish complaints process that remains opaque.
A recent ruling from the Canadian Transportation Agency found that a couple was not entitled to a refund because they chose to cancel their 2020 booking — for a flight the airline had already cancelled.
In a confidential decision obtained by The Canadian Press, a complaints resolution officer at the regulator said the two passengers qualified for no more than a voucher because they called off their reservation with WestJet and their ticket excluded reimbursement in such instances.
However, WestJet's policies at the time stated that in the event of disruptions outside the carrier's control, customers "will be refunded" in the original form of payment should they turn down an alternate travel route.
In an email, transportation agency spokesman Jadrino Huot says refund obligations a few years ago came down to the conditions attached to the ticket, since airlines were not required to reimburse in force majeure situationsuntil an update to the passenger rights charter in 2022.
However, passenger rights advocate Gabor Lukacs says precedents going back two decades established refund rights in such circumstances and that, either way, the tickets' conditions require reimbursement.