Air travellers are not a bank

Any business that can’t provide a service that’s been paid for is expected or even required by law to give the money back.

But somehow the Canadian airline industry thinks such norms don’t apply to them.

Flights have been cancelled for months, putting an end to student trips, family holidays, destination weddings and business travel, and continue to be cancelled because of COVID-19.

But all the money paid for those flights is not being returned. Instead, people are generally being offered a credit for future travel, whether or not those trips can ever be recreated.

Air Canada alone is holding many millions of dollars — one estimate puts it at more than $2 billion — of their customers’ money.

No wonder people are signing petitions and filing lawsuits demanding refunds.

When asked about it on Thursday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called it “an important issue to Canadians.” He said he knows people want their money back, but also that Canadians still want to have an airline industry when the crisis is over.

“We need to make sure we’re getting the balance right,” Trudeau said. Here’s a hint: It’s way out of balance now. Currently, everything is stacked in favour of the airlines. They’re holding a fortune in cash for services they either already haven’t provided or can’t provide in the coming weeks and months as government-mandated lockdowns and travel restrictions continue.

That’s not a balance; that’s consumers holding the bag.

Clearly many Canadians want and, indeed, need their money back. If airlines want to keep some of the cash they’re holding they should at least be prepared to offer something in return, such as a price guarantee for a future booking.

The federal government is “looking at what other countries and jurisdictions are doing,” said Trudeau.

In that case, he should know that they’re doing better than we are.

That’s not to say that Canadians are the only frustrated travellers; they’re certainly not. Plenty of Americans and Europeans are also struggling to get refunds for travel bookings cancelled because of the pandemic.

But at least the overseeing authorities in the U.S. and the European Union have come down on the right side of things. They’ve stood up for passenger rights and called on airlines to provide refunds if that’s what consumers want.

Here we get the Canadian Transportation Agency, which stated at the outset of the pandemic that it’s an “appropriate approach” for airlines to issue credit vouchers rather than refunds.

“It’s important to consider how to strike a fair and sensible balance between passenger protection and airlines’ operational realities in these extraordinary and unprecedented circumstances,” the agency stated then.

There’s nothing fair or sensible about how airlines are treating their customers. The pandemic is a financial catastrophe for the airline industry but that doesn’t mean it has the right to treat travellers like a bank, providing interest-free loans.

After a lot of understandable fury from consumers, the regulator later added that people who think they’re “entitled to a refund” and “don’t want to accept a voucher … can ask the airline for a refund.”

Plenty of people are doing that and getting nowhere, so that’s hardly helpful. And why should it be up to thousands of individuals to fight and re-fight this battle?

Governments imposed the travel restrictions and lockdowns that led to the cancellations. The transportation agency regulates the airline industry. So it’s up to them to come up with a solution. Instead, they seem to have stayed out of the fray and let airlines do whatever they want. That has to change. When pressed on this matter during his daily media briefing, Trudeau refused to say whether he would take steps to force the industry to provide refunds. In fact, he wouldn’t even acknowledge that what is happening is unfair.

It clearly is and the government shouldn’t continue to stand back and do nothing.

At least the overseeing authorities in the U.S. and the European Union have come down on the right side of things. They’ve stood up for passenger rights