Mr. Chair, I would like to thank the committee for the invitation to appear today.
As you noted, I am accompanied by my colleague Michelle Greenshields.
Chair, if it's okay with you, we'll share our five minutes of opening remarks.
First, as a regulator, the Canadian Transport Agency develops regulations in accordance with legislation, implements regulations, issues licences and determinations, and enforces regulations.
Second, as an administrative tribunal, the agency resolves complaints using informal dispute resolution, facilitation and mediation, as well as through a formal adjudication process, in which it has all the powers of a superior court.
The agency has a mandate for the federally regulated transportation system—air, rail and marine—as well as for protecting the human rights of persons with disabilities to an accessible transportation network.
A core component of our mandate is providing consumer protection for air passengers, most significantly through the Air Passenger Protection Regulations, or APPR.
In 2018, the Transportation Modernization Act amended the Canada Transportation Act and gave the agency the authority to make regulations defining airlines' minimum obligations toward passengers.
Before the development of the APPR, each airline set out its own terms and conditions of carriage in a legal document known as a tariff—which is in effect the contract between the passenger and the airlines. After the coming into force of the APPR, in addition to the terms and conditions set out in their tariff, each airline is required to follow the obligations as set out in the APPR. These regulations create more consistent passenger rights across airlines.
Developed following a comprehensive public consultation exercise, the APPR addresses fundamental entitlements of passengers including receiving clear communications, and being treated fairly in the case of delays, cancellations and denied boarding.
These minimum obligations differ, based on the extent to which the causes of a flight disruption are within an airline's control or not. Obviously for situations that an airline can control, airlines are held to a higher standard of treatment toward the passengers, for example, for flight disruptions that are wholly within airline control, airlines are required to provide compensation for inconvenience. Even when events occur that are outside of their control, airlines must still ensure that their passengers get to their destination as quickly as possible.
Whether an event is outside of an airline's control, within their control, or within the airlines' control but required for safety can sometimes be difficult to determine. It can be even more difficult for a passenger, as the information that would enable the passenger to determine how the flight disruption is categorized and what their entitlements are, is within the hands of the airlines.