Government documents suggest Ottawa stalled airline fee meant to fund passenger complaints system

Internal government documents obtained by Go Public suggest Transport Canada officials and successive transport ministers worked to delay — and potentially undermine — an effort to force airlines to help pay for Canada’s air passenger complaints system.

The records show Transport Canada — under two different transport ministers — repeatedly intervened in the work of the Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA), which is supposed to operate independently and was directed by Parliament in 2023 to introduce a cost-recovery fee on airlines. 

More than two and a half years later, the fee still does not exist. 

Taxpayers continue to cover roughly $30 million a year to process air passenger complaints and the backlog of people seeking compensation continues to grow — already topping more than 88,000.

Passengers who are denied compensation after such things as flight delays, denied boarding or lost luggage can file complaints with the CTA. But because the complaints system has been overwhelmed, as a temporary measure to recover part of the cost, Parliament ordered the agency to charge airlines a fee for cases involving passengers with eligible claims. 

To understand why the fee has not been implemented, Go Public filed an Access to Information request with the CTA, covering the period from Aug. 1, 2024 to May 20, 2025.

More than 2,000 pages of heavily repetitious records include correspondence between the CTA and multiple transport ministers, internal discussions about how to respond to government concerns about the proposed fee, and submissions from a public consultation process. 

The documents were reviewed by Gábor Lukács, founder of Air Passenger Rights, an advocacy organization that made a submission on the proposed fee.

"What I am seeing here is strong evidence of ministerial interference with the CTA's work, which is supposed to be independent," said Lukács.

Neither the CTA, the transport minister, nor the ministry — which is also known as Transport Canada — agreed to interviews. Transport Canada provided a general statement about its role that did not answer Go Public’s specific questions. Former ministers of transport in office since the CTA was directed to implement a fee did not respond to our questions.

After Parliament ordered the fee for airlines in 2023, the agency proposed charging $790 for each eligible passenger complaint.

The CTA held public consultations in the fall of 2024, receiving 83 written submissions. 

Consumer groups and members of the public largely supported the fee. Airlines and industry representatives opposed it, arguing that the fee will incentivize frivolous claims and that passengers should shoulder some of the costs of the complaints process – an option Parliament had not authorized.

Many of the internal records are heavily redacted, but among the records is a letter from then-transport minister Anita Anand to the chair of the CTA, dated October 2024.