Airline delays, bumping, lost luggage: Your rights (CBC Marketplace)

this week on marketplace trapped in a travel nightmare what rights do you have when your plane is delayed for hours then a day i was stuck there i was at their mercy when airlines don't give you the straight goods and the crowd was definitely getting ugly and there's no money for your troubles you're on the same plane they get the vouchers for 150 bucks and you get nothing we go in search of your flight rights and have a hard time finding any even though the government has promised i think people get frustrated and they expect action and we plan to act looking for justice when it's just plain wrong we're in the baggage claims area at ottawa international airport turning our luggage into a carousel of questions each of them asking just how much do canadian air travelers know about their rights when things go wrong the airline is not responsible for delays caused by whether true or false true yeah when they tell you the weather is a problem do you always believe them no if you're on the plane and your flight is delayed by more than 90 minutes you can get off the plane true or false no it's falling off the plane i would want to get off but i would think you probably can't i'd say that's false because i've been on a tarmac for several hours and they said they can't let us off actually you can get off the plane i don't know after 90 minutes if it's safe yeah and doable you can get off the plane oh i didn't know that i've always just sort of sat there if your baggage does not arrive the airline has to bring it to you when it does true or false false no that's true oh really you have to bring it to your house like right to your doorstep yep okay i'll remember that these travelers are like a lot of canadians unsure just what kind of rights we have when it comes to flying if any and that's despite a lot of news coverage in recent years about incidents like this after more than a day of waiting stranded travelers in snaking lines hit a breaking point much of the time the problem seems to be the weather but too often you tell us it's the airlines never flying with air canada ever again ever several delayed flights led to missed connector flights led to me missing out on a day or a day and a half of a vacation i applied to the dominican republic to this day i've been asking for my money back all they've offered me in return is 15 off of my next flight with them like that's going to happen i got a bump from an air canada flight because they chose to sell more tickets on that flight than they had seats available it ruined my business trip most companies treat their customers with respect unfortunately air canada may need a law put in place to make them do the same there should be a law but not just for air canada according to these folks in ottawa they're angry at sunwing airlines after their planned flight to orlando florida couldn't get off the ground so i've lost two days of my life two days of my life because sunwing wasn't able to provide the servers that we signed up for less and his wife nancy are still fuming now this has been the tone of the one vacation we take together same goes for old friends eric and dawn it's just a downer right from the get-go and you never get it back here's the kind of thing they were expecting you deserve more than an average vacation sunwing likes to promise champagne service and prices that are unbeatable no one remembers average but as you're about to see average would have been an upgrade on january 11th our travelers arrive at the airport around 4 30 in the morning with no hint of a delay sunwing flight 34 is scheduled to depart at 6 30 a.m at the check-in counter less and nancy are told their flight is in fact postponed until 9 15 that night and get this they're hearing about it from staff with an airline called first air because no one from sunwing is on site and they're surprised to see us there didn't you know that it's been postponed and what did you say i was flabbergasted i couldn't believe it and i asked them i said well why and they didn't have an answer for me it wasn't the weather's fault that day according to the airport either way confusion is the order of the day some folks are given taxi vouchers to go back home but nothing to return them to the airport later others get hotel vouchers that are only good until mid-afternoon by 6 30 that evening everyone is back at the airport having missed a day of relaxing in the florida sun finally 9 15 rolls around and time for takeoff but no one's going anywhere and no one's saying why by 10 o'clock word comes that u.s customs might not be open when the flight lands in orlando an hour later the final nail their flight will not be leaving until 5 15 the next morning nearly 24 hours after it's supposed to depart when they announced that the flight would not go until the next day everybody kind of went very all together as a group kind of surge the ottawa police who patrol the airport literally three officers came and stood between the crowd and the representatives because people were ugly and they were tired and they were mad it's like you're locked up in jail i didn't have my luggage i couldn't leave if i wanted to i had no options they wouldn't assist me to book another flight i was stuck there i was at their mercy everyone is given the offer of a hotel room but it's already midnight and they have to be back in a few hours many decide to wait it out at the airport about five hours later they finally take off you're supposed to land 9 45 in the morning of january 11. correct you land in orlando around the same time that's right the next day right so we're talking how many hours uh it was at least 27 to 30 hours for a three-hour plane ride we could have driven down there quicker than these guys took us hi unbelievable to sunwing this corporate video flies in the face of what our ottawa travelers experienced one of our mottos is your vacation should start the minute you get to the airport that's some wing president mark williams who oversees the airline's day-to-day operations but the man who got it all started is this guy colin hunter is chairman and founder of sunwing in just over a decade he's turned it into one of canada's largest leisure companies hunter is also a self-styled crooner with several cds to his name for sale on sunwing's website this sinatra wannabe even calls himself chairman of the board come fly with me his signature song we show his performance to some of his disgruntled passengers and asked for a review he's a very good singer i have one piece of advice for him yes colin quit your day job and do this full time if you had a message for him eric what would it be i'll never fly sun wing again that's it that's the only message i have and eric is one of the passengers given a 150 voucher towards their next flight on sunwing but get this not everyone aboard got that compensation for their 24-hour delay i think people are just getting tired of being ripped off and we're not going to take it anymore certainly none of us have gotten any kind of apology from sun wing a 150 voucher that we're never going to use is no apology but what options and what rights do they have you're about to meet a crusader who is rewriting the rules i'm saying the airlines are systematically deceiving passengers we're at ottawa airport asking canadians how they feel about flying i feel sometimes that we we accept things from airlines that we wouldn't accept from a cab driver and we're testing how much you know about your flight rights if you're bumped from a flight the airline has to give you as much as 800 bucks true or false i'm gonna say it's false it's actually true if you're on air canada to give you eight hundred dollars if they bump you off an oversold flight wow well they shouldn't do that in the first place that they shouldn't oversell seats i think that's what this guy thinks too so he did something about it gabor lucach has made it his business to fight for the rights of canadian air travelers how often do frustrated flyers contact you i get several emails every week the sad reality in canada is that in terms of air passenger rides there are very few options for passengers we catch up with gabor at the canada aviation and space museum a place that recalls the romance of air travel a time that gabor says is long gone the airlines are serving their own interests profit is their main mandate and if some passengers don't make it to the wedding or the funeral of their relatives who cares gabor has lodged dozens of complaints against airlines and won his fair share of decisions including the one forcing air canada and now other canadian carriers to bump up the compensation they pay to bump passengers the canadian transportation agency is supposed to be the referee in events last year the agency received more than 500 complaints against canadians and foreign airlines but critics say it's hard for passengers to win those complaints on parliament hill and i have to provide certain rights to air passengers be now read a second time there have been attempts to introduce passenger rights bills but the government grounded them then before the last throne speech hints of a changing course industry minister james moore floated the idea i think people get frustrated and they expect action and we plan to act in the end there was no action if there was a passenger bill of rights passed by the federal government how different would things be the biggest problem that passengers are facing is not simply that there is no bill of rights but rather that the current rights are not being adequately enforced but what exactly are the current rights in truth it's a hodgepodge if any part of your flight goes outside canada international treaties kick in they spell out rules on flight delays and lost luggage and how much passengers should be compensated for their troubles if your flight is inside canada you're at the mercy of the airline's tariff it's contract with you filled with voluntary guidelines the airlines have set out for themselves rules that don't often favor you the typical reaction of a canadian passenger is that if the airline tells them you are not entitled to this they just accept it and you're saying the airlines are lying i'm saying the airlines are systematically deceiving passengers about their rights why would they do that to save money isn't it obvious a bill of rights could turn current guidelines into law instead of the fine print in a contract until then passengers are on their own back in ottawa no one's quite sure how to get some compensation out of sunway what kind of options do you think you have i'm not 100 sure but certainly finding a complaint with sunway will be part of the first step and see see where we go from there for inspiration we decide to show them what some other canadians have done in a very similar circumstance the same weekend that this was happening to you there was another group coming back from cuba to canada with sunwing and went through an incredible experience which they actually captured on video i'm going to share some of that with you have a look everybody's been lying to us for hours these folks down in varadero are learning their sunwing flight is now their plight a series of delays and broken promises leaves them stranded in the middle of the night at a foreign airport with little food or water and no luggage they try contacting authorities back in canada without much luck we're stuck in the airport there are like 190 of us and i was trying to get the through affairs office in canada the ordeal lasts more than 20 hours can you relate to that it's unbelievable in this day and age that people are treated this badly for the money they spent it's ridiculous now they learned the kicker here's a little ps for you on this story about these people flying in from cuba they got their entire airfare refunded from somewhere that's what it should be i think we should get the same i should get my money back we should all get our money back because they should really respect the contract so how those canadians in cuba do it to find out we catch up with dino canelopolis on the snowy streets of toronto it was a sunwing ad like this that lured him south in the first place bring back good memories good is not the adjective i'd used to describe sunwing let's leave it at that dino says that between delays going down and the big one coming back his vacation was pretty much ruined in hindsight if i was offered the the entire experience again there's no chance in hell i would have in heck i would have accepted it that long delay gave those passengers plenty of time to plot their next steps i united stand a united front one voice versus everyone going going after sunwing independently a strategy that had dino set up this facebook page to gather passenger stories photos and videos throw in a little media attention and within days sunwing refunded their full airfare each passenger getting 400 bucks dino says his heart goes out to fellow travelers in ottawa i hope they were compensated in some respect if they weren't i would strongly suggest that they try and unite and go after sunwing for something more than something similar to the compensation that we received the fact these frustrated flyers in ottawa have not received compensation smacks of a double standard so we decided to get them some help from the expert you heard their story what did you think if you asked me simply as a human being not as an er passenger rights advocate what is the worst thing that happened here it is the humiliation that passengers experienced and they have taken your money in advance and you are now their captive gabor thinks they have a good case for a formal complaint for not being told about their delay sooner for not being booked on another airline and for out-of-pocket expenses like hotel rooms they didn't get to use in florida the first step is put together a very good letter of complaint outlining all these facts gabor agrees to help write that letter and we agreed to deliver it to the president of sunwing how would you feel if you went through something like that we're at sun wing headquarters in toronto with a letter of complaint from passengers who waited 24 hours to take a three-hour flight before we handed to president mark williams we shared their anger i had no options they wouldn't assist me to book another flight how would you feel if you went through something like that it was not our intention to delay people the way they were delayed ultimately our philosophy has been to try and operate every flight because we believe our passengers want to get the destination rather than have the flight canceled and be left where they are williams says one delay just led to another but why no refund for the folks in ottawa we try to look at each individual circumstance and do what we feel is right under the circumstance what's different about the one that happened in ottawa versus the one from cuba well people were at home uh rather than delayed in destination cuba is a much more difficult place to be stuck so your view is if people can go back to their homes it's not so bad as opposed to being in another country even if they're in transit for 24 hours it's certainly better to be able to go home than uh be stuck somewhere other than your home yes i'll tell that to those people in ottawa they didn't like it they weren't happy and they've asked me to deliver a letter to you asking for compensation okay that's the letter okay thank you will you follow up with these people who've absolutely asked for conversation definitely will meantime williams says sunwing is drafting its own bill of rights because he says airlines don't need a law telling them how to look after passengers back in ottawa our sunwing flyers don't trust any airline to protect their rights if someone was writing up a bill of rights what would you like to see on it some kind of automatic compensation for extreme time delays the ideas come fast and furious born out of their trip from hell i don't know whether it would ever happen or not but maybe they should be required to have a representative at the airport whatever the bill of rights ends up being that we all have access to it above all they want to make sure any new rules are enforced something just to clearly outline every passenger's options we promise to round up their ideas and yours and send them to the federal government vote for your flight rights at cbc.ca marketplace

Channel: CBC News

Views: 502,249

Rating: 4.8256087 out of 5

Keywords: Marketplace (Award-Winning Work), Canada, Landing, Airline (Industry), Sunwing Airlines (Airline), lost luggage, flight delays, flights, air travel, compensation, customer service, rights, bumping

Id: ZkWkNEnhsGY

Length: 18min 22sec (1102 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 09 2014