A low-cost carrier that recently began flying out of St. John’s has left some travellers frustrated and looking for explanations — and compensation.
Ryan Piercey of Clarenville went to Montreal last week with his girlfriend for a Metallica concert.
They left St. John’s on Aug. 9 via Lynx Air, a Calgary-based carrier that serves parts of the United States and Canada and began flying out of St. John’s International Airport in June.
It was Piercey’s first time using Lynx Air and it turned into a turbulent ride when he received an email last Friday that said their flight home had been cancelled and the only alternative was four days later.
They were supposed to fly to Newfoundland on Sunday but now weren’t going to be able to fly with Lynx until Thursday, he said, days after they needed to go back to work.
“We hadn’t planned on spending an extra four days there.”
Over the weekend, Piercey said, they tried to speak with a Lynx representative only to find out that there was no call centre service on the weekends, so on Sunday they headed to the airport hoping for the best, but there was no Lynx representative there until noon, after their flight was scheduled to leave.
The representative said the flight had been cancelled because of crew issues but he couldn’t do anything for the stranded couple, as he was only there for check-in.
“So we were kind of stranded and not knowing what to do,” said Piercey. “We didn’t have a hotel or provisions for anything slated past Sunday.”
Piercey and his girlfriend booked another flight. The new travel arrangements cost about $1,600, he said, but Lynx will compensate them only for the cancelled flight — just over $500.
“I understand that schedules change and things like that, but a four-day window is huge, especially when you’re in a completely different province,” Piercey said.
He said he asked to speak with a supervisor but was denied, and was referred to Lynx’s website to file a claim.
Ottawa is moving to strengthen protections for Canadian air travellers in part because of a massive backlog of compensation complaints. Some proposed changes to the passenger bill of rights include airlines providing more timely information and compensating travellers for any delays deemed within the airline’s control.
‘It cost us a fair bit’: passenger
Susan Wyse of Toronto, originally from Newfoundland, had a similar experience with her flight back to Ontario after attending the wedding of a friend from home.
On Sunday, the day of her flight back to Toronto, she got an email from Lynx saying there had been a “flight disruption.”
“It was very vaguely worded,” said Wyse, adding she spent three hours on hold with Lynx before learning the flight had been cancelled.
When Wyse went to the airport to get assistance, there was no one from Lynx there in person. And when she finally reached a representative, they were able to refund the ticket but would not be able to get them out of St. John’s for several days.
Wyse said there was no support offered for hotel accommodations, and she eventually bought an Air Canada flight.
“We’re out a good chunk of change from the whole thing,” she said. “It cost us a fair bit and other than the little refund, it didn’t come close to covering the full cost of how much we’re out.”
Both Piercey and Wyse have filed complaints through the Lynx website but have not received responses.
Airline accountability
The head of a group of volunteers who help travellers understand their rights says what Lynx offered Piercey and Wyse wasn’t good enough.”
If there is a flight cancellation by a small carrier, Gábor Lukács of Air Passenger Rights said, the carrier has to provide the passenger with a meal, accommodations, and transportation if the flight is cancelled less than 12 hours before the scheduled departure.
And when it comes to business or operational cancellations, he said, the airline is also supposed to provide “$500 per passenger lump sum compensation.”
“But offering a passenger next flight in four days? That’s unreasonable,” he said.
Passengers should know what their rights are — and hold airlines accountable, he said.
“Small claims court is the answer,” he said. “When you buy a ticket, it is a contract. The terms of their Passenger Protection Regulations are incorporated as terms of the contract by virtue of the law.”
The problem isn’t limited to small carriers like Lynx, he said — larger airlines like Air Canada and WestJet are “equally bad” he said, but have more flights and can rebook faster than smaller airlines.
Lynx Air declined an interview request from CBC News. In a statement, the airline apologized to St. John’s passengers affected by cancellations, which it blamed on flight crew shortages.
“We recognize that our contact centre wait times have been longer than usual due to these disruptions, and that has also caused frustration for our passengers,” reads the statement.
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