A Toronto family is out thousands of dollars after they say Air Transat rescheduled their flight home from France to a day earlier, without their knowledge.
Nicola Lockwood says she booked return tickets to Paris from June 11 to June 23 but as she was trying to check in for the flight home, the system wouldn’t let her.
“So I called Air Transat and they said the flight has been moved to June 22 … and the flight’s already left and we were no shows so this was quite a shock to me,” explained Lockwood.
Lockwood, along with her husband and two-year-old son, were left scrambling. She said Air Transat told her they sent an email about the flight change in December, a few weeks after she booked her tickets.
“It was just an email sent so they couldn’t tell on their end if the email had been opened by me and I have absolutely no recollection of ever receiving an email like this,” she said.
“So we had already spent $300 for the return flight with Air Transat and then that was gone and we now have to pay an additional $5,000, it was closer to $5,500 dollars to get back home,” said Lockwood
Gabor Lukas with Air Passenger Rights said even if she did see the email, trying to put a passenger on an earlier flight is contrary to Air Passenger Protection Regulations, in part, because he argues it counts as a flight cancelation.
“The airline has to provide alternate transportation and it has to be on the next available flight, later flight, not earlier flight, unless the passenger expressly agrees,” said Lukas.
But, in a written statement, a spokesperson for Air Transat told CityNews, “According to regulations, moving a flight to an earlier date is permitted. Our obligation is notification and re-protection, which we believe occurred. No compensation is payable if notification is sent over 14 days prior to the impacted flight.”
Lukas disagrees.
“So the passengers are entitled to a reimbursement of their ultimate transportation expenses to come back to Canada for starters,” said Lukas.
In addition, he says passengers are also owed 600 Euros per person under the European regulations, if the airline does not notify them of a change at least 14 days in advance. He argues that includes the Lockwoods.
“Of course, we’d love to get reimbursed for the expenses incurred but most importantly, I’d love there to be a change in their policy about how they notify customers about things like this. I think there should be some sort of button you can press in the email to acknowledge or accept the change that’s been made to your flight,” said Lockwood.
CityNews put that suggestion to Air Transat but they did not address it in their response.
