Air Canada says it gave ‘erroneous’ response on delays compensation

The airline, which had faced questions over messages reportedly sent to passengers saying they would not be entitled to compensation, says its earlier response was 'erroneous.'

Air Canada says it will offer compensation to travellers who were affected by flight delays caused by technical problems in recent weeks.

The airline, which had initially faced questions over messages reportedly sent to passengers saying they would not be entitled to compensation, has said its earlier response was “erroneous.”

“Air Canada is offering compensation in line with APPR (Air Passenger Protection Regulations) compensation levels for flights which were affected by the IT outage. Some passengers had received erroneous responses from us, and we are in the process of recontacting them with the correct responses,” an Air Canada spokesperson told Global News.

Some passengers had received messages from the airline, saying the tech issues were out of its hands. The company has since said that message was an error.

A Transport Canada spokesperson told Global News that changes made to the APPR recently made compensation for passengers mandatory, simplified the complaints process and put the onus on airlines instead of passengers.

“We have been in touch with Air Canada, and they have assured us they will be compensating passengers whose flights were impacted by the recent IT issues,” Transport Canada spokesperson Nadine Ramadan said.

The country’s largest carrier has struggled with intermittent computer problems over the past 15 days.

On May 25, it delayed more than half its flights due to a “technical issue” with the system that the airline uses to communicate with aircraft and monitor their performance. On June 1, it delayed or cancelled more than 500 flights — over three-quarters of its trips that day, according to tracking service FlightAware — due to “IT issues.”