{"id":165328,"date":"2025-09-24T04:22:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T04:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/165328\/"},"modified":"2025-09-24T04:22:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T04:22:09","slug":"air-canada-passengers-still-waiting-for-refunds-after-summer-strike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/165328\/","title":{"rendered":"Air Canada passengers still waiting for refunds after summer strike"},"content":{"rendered":"

Travellers are having a hard time getting compensation from Air Canada for their missed flights and disrupted travel plans. Adrian Ghobrial reports. <\/p>\n

Air Canada customers across the country and around the world say they\u2019re still waiting to be reimbursed after a summer strike that left thousands of passengers stranded. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf feels like they want you to give up\u201d says Cindy Burns. <\/p>\n

Speaking to CTV News from her home in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Burns says her summer trip with her sister and parents to Ontario ended in frustration when their Air Canada flight home was cancelled on Aug. 16th. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe received a message from the airline saying they tried to rebook us on over 120 carriers, but they couldn\u2019t find any flights for us,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

However, Burns says, in just a few minutes she was able to go online and find a WestJet flight home. Her parents, who\u2019re both senior citizens needed to get home as soon as possible, so Burns says she was left with little choice but to pay $5,400 dollars with her credit card. <\/p>\n

According to the Canadian Transportation Agency\u2019s Air Passenger Protection Regulations<\/a>, if an airline can\u2019t rebook you following a cancellation, a customer may choose a reservation for the next available flight that is operated by \u201cany carrier.\u201d<\/p>\n

Burns filed her claim to be reimbursed for the additional expense home with Air Canada on Aug. 18. She says she still hasn\u2019t received her money and is now paying interest on her credit card as a result. <\/p>\n

\u201cI need to try and get this money back as soon as possible,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

As of Sept. 22, Air Canada says it\u2019s still working through more than 54,000 customer claims. <\/p>\n

Last week, CTV News put out a call to viewers asking for an update on their compensation claims with the airline; we received a flood of emails.<\/p>\n

Multiple passengers have emailed saying their cases have been marked resolved, even though they haven\u2019t received their reimbursement. <\/p>\n

Air Passenger Rights advocate, Gabor Lukacs, says passengers have been having difficulty submitting their claims to Air Canada both for reimbursement and for compensation under the European Union\u2019s rules. <\/p>\n

Speaking from her home in Bedford, England, Helen Offer says she\u2019s been going back and forth with Air Canada since their holiday to Canada from the U.K. went sideways when their return flight home was cancelled. They\u2019ve received some compensation, but not all of what she\u2019s entitled to, according to Offer. <\/p>\n

\u201cIts part of your country\u2019s reputation when they (Air Canada) behave like this,\u201d says Offer, adding Air Canada is \u201crefusing to pay for my husband\u2019s lost wages.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lost wages are \u201cowed under article 19 of the Montreal Convention for passengers travelling internationally,\u201d says Lukacs. <\/p>\n

In an email to CTV News, the Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) says an investigation is \u201ccurrently underway with respect to the Air Canada summer labour disruptions,\u201d according to a government agency spokesperson. <\/p>\n

From Aug. 11 to 31, the CTA says it received 1365 complaints against Air Canada. <\/p>\n

Air Canada tells CTV News that passenger claims are expected to take four to six weeks to process. The airline says that many passengers have already received their reimbursement and that the sudden halt of all flights in August has led to a significant backlog in complaints. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Travellers are having a hard time getting compensation from Air Canada for their missed flights and disrupted travel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":165329,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[712,45,49,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-165328","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-apple-news","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-canada"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}