Air Transat slammed for hours-long delays on grounded planes

Air Transat failed its passengers during a sweltering, hours-long ordeal aboard two of its grounded aircraft this summer, a federal agency ruled as it fined the airline $295,000 and ordered it to cover the out-of-pocket expenses of affected passengers.

The Canadian Transportation Agency said Thursday that Air Transat broke a tariff agreement with customers that governs when passengers can be let off a flight due to a tarmac delay.

The agency is ordering the airline to tighten its rules about when passengers are allowed off planes during delays, what services it has to provide, and ensure that its pilots actually know the wording in the agreements. It is also ordering the airline to pay $295,000 either to the agency in the form of a fine, or to the passengers themselves.

The airline said in a statement that it will comply with the agency’s orders, and plans to offer each affected passenger $500, but that compensation will take into consideration anything already paid.

Thursday’s report comes almost four months after the two flights — one from Rome, the other from Brussels — sat on the tarmac in Ottawa for almost five and six hours, respectively, with passengers not allowed to disembark.

One of the two aircraft ran out of fuel during the delay, then lost power, causing the air conditioning system to shut down.

During two days of hearings in August, passengers described how tensions mounted as temperatures rose, a child threw up on board one plane and ultimately a passenger on the Brussels flight called 911, attracting widespread media attention.

A number of people who were on board the planes told the hearings they would have given anything to be allowed to disembark, even if it meant additional delays or a twohour drive back to Montreal.

Weather caused the two flights to be diverted to Ottawa on July 31, along with about 20 other planes — an incident that appeared to tax airport resources in the national capital to their limit. Fuelling teams, for instance, ran out of fuel on several occasions.

Among the planes was an Airbus 380, the largest to land that day.

The need to find a place to park that Air Emirates flight forced crews to move the two Air Transat planes to the airport taxiway, where they could be neither refuelled nor serviced. As a result, they ended up being among the last planes to be refuelled. The airline argued it shouldn’t be held liable for what happened, blaming the airport authority and refuellers.