Judge certifies lawsuit against Westjet over travel credits

Class action argues that compensation for cancellations should not expire

A judge has certified a class-action lawsuit against Westjet for its operation of a program that deals with such things as credits for cancelled flights.

Tiana Sharifi, the representative plaintiff in the case, booked flights with Westjet and later cancelled them.

She received $993.26 in credit for the cancellations and was able to use $571.46 for a subsequent booking, but because Westjet's credits expire after one year and she didn't use the remaining $421.80 within that year, she lost the remaining money.

Sharifi is claiming that Westjet's travel bank program — which gives out “hard” credit for such things as a cancellation or change to a reservation and “soft” credits for such things as lost luggage and customer dissatisfaction — amounts to prepaid purchase cards or gift cards.

Her lawyers noted that consumer protection laws in many provinces in Canada ban expiry dates on prepaid purchase and gift cards and argued that the legislation should ban Westjet from imposing the one-year expiry date for the travel bank credits.

The company's hard credits can be extended for an extra year for a fee of $20, while the soft credits cannot be extended.

The plaintiff estimated that there were tens of thousands of people in Canada who, like Sharifi, had had their Westjet credits expire.

In her ruling on the case, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Amy Francis noted that the certification analysis did not involve a consideration of the merits of the claim and only dealt with whether the lawsuit was properly brought as a class-action proceeding. That analysis involved determining a number of things, including whether the pleadings disclosed a cause of action, whether there was an identifiable class of two or more persons, and whether the claim raised common issues.

The airline, which opposed the certification, argued that it was “plain and obvious” that its credits were neither a gift card nor a prepaid purchase card.

The company claimed that the hard credits were a return policy and goodwill customer service gesture akin to the store credit for a retail purchase wherein a retailer can grant store credit for exchanged goods and such credit may be time-limited.

The judge said she could not find that the claim disclosed no reasonable cause of action.

Francis said that while Westjet may be successful in its arguments at a common issues trial, the plaintiff's claims were not bound to fail. She certified the case as a class-action proceeding.