Finance committee  First of all, I'm not sure if Air Canada was that much in need of national support as they claim. There were, perhaps, other airlines that were, but Air Canada went into this crisis, this pandemic, in a very good, strong financial position. In terms of support, money should go primarily to restructuring for improving service and making services better, for better technology, for expenses that make the industry as a whole more competitive, and not just padding the executives' pockets or the corporation's coffers.

Finance committee  That's a very troubling question. The legal validity of that contractual provision, of course, would have to be determined by a judge. We have some serious doubts about whether any vendor or business can contract out the obligation to refund its customers in the event a service cannot be delivered.

Finance committee  We are not sufficiently familiar with the exact details of those specific carriers, However, generally, Canada needs a competitive airline sector. We would like to ensure that it is not a monopoly or a duopoly on any route. There are a number of airlines that are all competing for consumers.

Finance committee  Mr. Chair and honourable members, thank you for the privilege to be here today. Air Passenger Rights is Canada's independent non-profit organization of volunteers devoted to empowering travellers. We take no government or business funding and we have no business interest in the travel industry.

Transport committee  I'm happy to comment on that. For the short term, people should be staying at home because that is the safest thing to do in the pandemic. Once the pandemic is over, demand is going to be back. If consumer confidence is restored, demand is going to be back and connectivity will be back.

Transport committee  Currently there's a private member's bill by Mr. Barsalou-Duval, Bill C-249, which was tabled earlier. I understand that your predecessor may also be working on something similar. The effect of this bill is that it would declare that the law has always been that passengers are entitled to a refund when an airline cancels a flight for any reason, whether it's within or outside the airline's control.

Transport committee  The air passenger protection regulations created a false sense of confidence. They never were meant to work; they were designed to fail. Certainly what we see now undermines further passenger and customer confidence. Bill C-249 is going to fix just the basics. The most important principle in every commercial transaction, that if you don't receive what you paid for, you get your money back, is a vital step for the entire sector's recovery.

Transport committee  What is missing first and foremost in dealing with those complaints is the will by the Canadian Transportation Agency to address them. We have documents indicating that the Canadian Transportation Agency has been sending away passengers who have valid complaints, telling them that they have no case.

Transport committee  First of all, I believe passenger rights should be incorporated in the primary legislation, not in regulations. Regulations they can suspend, and do suspend, on a whim. Second, even before the APPR, passengers had a right to a refund when the airline cancelled a flight for any reason.

Transport committee  We have estimates based on financial data published by those airlines that are publicly traded, and as such, they have public financial reports. Air Canada currently holds about $2.3 billion in advance ticket sales. Projecting that to the entire Canadian airline sector, we estimate that about $3.87 billion is outstanding.

Transport committee  No, that could not be divided by half, because when you do the calculations, if you look at StatsCan data, without taxes, an average ticket ranges between $200 and $300, depending which quarter you look at. You also add taxes to that, so the estimates for a one-way ticket, on average, would be about $500 or less.

Transport committee  We have not done that calculation. One would have to be very careful to do the proper calculation because you have some statistics on per segment flown, per embarkment. The best way to get information would be to ask the airlines themselves to open their books and provide that information, at least to this committee.

Transport committee  Mr. Chair, we are seeing a number of instances where airlines make dubious claims about the reasons for flight cancellations. The reason is that if the cancellation is within the airline's control, on top of refunds, airlines also have to compensate passengers for the inconvenience.

Transport committee  The numbers that we do have, as I mentioned, relate to the flights for November. Airlines, and frankly, Air Canada, were selling tickets between September 25 to October 31. Approximately 75% of the flights of Air Canada scheduled for November were cancelled. We are seeing somewhat similar trends for WestJet, but we don't have numbers for it.

Transport committee  That's quite accurate. I would think of this as more of a kind of pyramid game, where they take the money and perhaps use it to operate flights of previous passengers, but don't deliver services to these passengers.