Airline should take a hit for '17 incident: activist

Air Transat must pay both compensation and fines for lengthy delay, advocate says

An air passenger rights activist says Air Transat should not receive a reduced fine for leaving 590 passengers sweltering for more than four hours on the tarmac of the Ottawa airport.

Gábor Lukács said he intends to seek judicial review of the Canadian Transportation Agency's decision to waive most of the $295,000 fine imposed against the airline.

Air Transat offered affected passengers $500 each in compensation for the July 31, 2017, incident.

A transportation agency official then allowed the airline to use that compensation as a credit against the fine it incurred for breaching its obligation to passengers.

Lukács said that was wrong: He contends the fine waiver agreement has no basis in the law governing such penalties, the Canada Transportation Act.

“With the same stroke of the pen that they issued the penalty, they said, `You don't have to pay the penalty,'” Lukács charged in an interview. “In reality, Air Transat hardly had to pay anything.”

A document obtained as part of his Federal Court case, Lukács said, shows that Air Transat paid only $55,000 of its original fine to the federal government. This newspaper has not seen the document firsthand.

“I'm happy that passengers were compensated, but my position is that the penalty has to be on top of compensation to passengers,” he said.

Montreal-based Air Transat did not reply to a request for comment Friday.

On July 31, 2017, Air Transat Flight 507 from Rome spent four hours and 47 minutes on the tarmac at Ottawa International Airport, while Air Transat Flight 157 from Brussels stayed on the ground for five hours and 51 minutes.

Both planes were destined for Montreal but diverted because of intense thunderstorms over that city. They were among 20 commercial flights diverted to Ottawa, which meant the airport had to manage both the increased traffic and 88 regularly scheduled arrivals and departures.

Stranded Air Transat passengers became so frustrated that one distressed traveller dialed 911. Some vomited while others complained they were parched and suffocating. The planes ran low on food, water and toilet paper; the flight director on one plane worried about a riot.

Lukács has been fighting for years for the full fine to be imposed.

In Federal Court, Air Transat argued successfully that Lukács had no legal standing to launch the case. But the Federal Court of Appeal recently overturned that decision, ruling that the merits of Lukács' case should be assessed by a judge before a decision is made about his standing.

That has cleared the way for Lukács to resume his court fight.

In November 2017, the Canadian Transportation Agency fined Air Transat $295,000 for not living up to its contractual obligations to passengers. That contract, known as a tariff agreement, gives passengers the right to deplane after a 90-minute tarmac delay with the captain's approval.

The agency rejected Air Transat's contention that “chaotic, exceptional and unusual” circumstances were responsible for the delays and absolved the airline of its contractual obligations.

Lukács said the CTA has offered no explanation as to why it offered Air Transat credit toward its fine based on the passenger compensation package.