menu_open Columnists
We use cookies to provide some features and experiences in QOSHE

More information  .  Close

How I fought an airline for compensation and won (aka Canada's Air Passenger Protection actually works)

4 0
24.05.2025

Evidently, you can fight city hall. Or, more accurately, the airline industry, which is to say if you’ve ever been screwed over by a Canadian carrier, you can actually get a measure of revenge with a little persistence.

A year and a half after going after Flair Airlines for an experience six shades beyond hellish, I won a claim thanks to the fine folks at the Canadian Transportation Agency. One minute Flair was offering nothing but a $125 cheque for misery endured (that offer quickly rescinded), the next I was getting an email stating Flair had been ordered to provide a full refund and more.

We’ll get to that in a minute. First, a recap.

In December of 2022 I made the stupid mistake of agreeing to fly to Ontario for Christmas. Even more idiotic, the decision was made to fly via a low-cost carrier—Flair Airlines—in economy, where the legroom is great if your name is Billy Barty, drinking water comes with a price tag, and inflight entertainment consists of watching those stuck next to screaming babies.

The flight was supposed to leave on December 20, 2022. You can read the whole epic saga here. But to summarize, highlights included spending seven long hours in various passenger lounges with no updates as to what was going on, four hours on the tarmac with no drinking water, a sudden 1 a.m. de-planing, a sleepless night on a freezing YVR floor, a 7 a.m. suggestion that maybe it might be best to go home, and the contraction of a duke-nuke-'em cold/flu combo that ruined the rest of the holidays.

In case none of this is painting a detailed enough picture, here’s an excerpt from the story linked above, with YVR Yoda being the person running the Flair check-in counter:

The serfs, peasants, and common rabble—including yours truly—would periodically approach YVR Yoda, who would whisper things unheard by the rest of us. The enlightened would then come away and share whatever info they had gleaned—the plane was on its way, the plane was parked somewhere at the airport, the plane was just trying to give everyone a taste of what unforgiving, everlasting hell is going to be like.

One passenger finally asked “Do you want me to just tell everyone here what you said? I can yell it out.”

Yoda didn’t answer. And he didn’t flinch when, predictably, some male Karen finally lost his shit, punched the Plexiglas separating Yoda from the common people, and shrieked, “WHY DON’T YOU JUST FUCKING CANCEL IT!!!!!!

Flair Airlines’ take on the whole thing? That would be that it wasn't the airline’s fault, but instead the weather was to blame for making it snow the night before the plane was supposed to depart.

A bit of background here on my decision to not just take it from the airline industry. As charged by my priest, probation officer, and the three family........

© Georgia Straight