sa国际传媒’s Civil Resolution Tribunal has ordered Air sa国际传媒 to pay a sa国际传媒 couple $1,400 for flight delays the airline said were a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Inayat Singh and Suk Young Yoon told tribunal vice-chair Shelley Lopez that Air sa国际传媒 owed them compensation under the Air Passenger Protection Regulations for a delay in their arrival at their final destination.
Singh and Yoon were booked on flight AC190, scheduled to depart Victoria on Aug. 22, 2021 at 12:30 a.m. It was set to arrive in Toronto at 7:56 a.m.
The flight was cancelled a few hours before the flight. The company rebooked the pair on a flight arriving by 3:30 p.m.
Air sa国际传媒 said it was due to “crew constraints resulting from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our operations," outside of its control. It said flight issues had to be looked in the context of the whole pandemic and not in isolation.
Air sa国际传媒 said Singh and Yoon had to prove otherwise and had not done so. As such, the airline said it owed the pair nothing, stated the .
The tribunal ruled it was "insufficient" for Air sa国际传媒 to simply assert that it was outside its control or due to safety concerns, because of the pandemic.
“Second, I also am not prepared to accept the vague and unsupported assertion that I must consider the aviation ecosystem as a whole and find that the applicants’ particular flight delay was outside Air sa国际传媒’s control or done for safety reasons,” said Lopez.
The tribunal said Air sa国际传媒 had not provided sufficient evidence on that issue. Only Air sa国际传媒 had the ability to prove the delay was outside its control or due to pandemic-related safety constraints, she added.
“In the absence of evidence to the contrary here, I agree,” Lopez said. “I find the delay was within Air sa国际传媒’s control and was not for safety purposes.”
