A B.C. couple’s more than four-year battle with Air Canada over compensation for a flight delay has finally ended.
Last week, the airline dropped a court case it had launched against Andrew and Anna Dyczkowski, who live just outside Kelowna, B.C., and on Wednesday Air Canada paid them $1,000 each for a 24-hour flight delay from Vancouver to Costa Rica in January 2020.
“It’s just my guess that they chickened out, because they knew that they couldn’t actually, possibly win,” said Andrew Dyczkowski.
The dispute began in February 2020 when the couple filed a complaint with the Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA), after Air Canada denied their initial compensation claim.
The CTA ordered the airline to pay the couple $2,000 in compensation. Instead, in late 2023, Air Canada took the couple to court to try to overturn the ruling.
More than a year later, and just three days before a scheduled court hearing, Air Canada abandoned the case without explanation, according to court documents.
Although he’s happy the case ended in his favour, Dyczkowski still questions how and why he and his wife had to endure the protracted fight, which included a court dispute.
“Why all this mess?” he said. “I don’t think this is right.”
But that’s how the rules work. After CTA officers issue rulings on air passenger complaints, passengers or airlines wishing to contest them must take the case to Federal Court. Only the original parties in the dispute can be named in the court case, which means the CTA can’t assist passengers in court.
The Dyczkowski case is the fourth CTA ruling airlines have challenged in court in 2024, and the second one filed by Air Canada. In the other case, which is still before the courts, the airline is contesting a CTA order to pay a Toronto passenger $2,079 for delayed luggage.
While it’s rare for airlines to appeal CTA decisions, there’s a growing call for the federal agency to overhaul the complaints process. Advocates say this change is needed so passengers don’t run the risk of a legal battle just because they filed a complaint against an airline.
“Change the freaking regulation,” said John Gradek, an aviation management professor at McGill University.
“Get the passenger out of that whole equation.”
Air Canada says it felt bad for couple
Under federal rules, airlines pay up to $1,000 compensation per passenger if a flight cancellation or delay was within their control.
According to CTA documents, Air Canada maintained that bad weather — which was outside its control — was the main reason for the Dyczkowskis’ flight delay. The CTA officer disagreed and ordered the airline to pay up.
In Federal Court documents, Air Canada claims the officer “failed to properly evaluate the evidence.”
Air Canada spokesperson Peter Fitzpatrick told CBC News in an email that the airline contested the CTA decision in court, because it was “the only way to get clarity” on how the agency’s officers assess evidence in complaint cases.
Air Canada is going to court to overturn a ruling that it must compensate a B.C. couple for a delayed flight. Some experts say this could become a trend and other carriers could flood the courts with more cases.
Fitzpatrick said the airline dropped the court battle because, over time, it has gained some clarity on the CTA process, which has helped it determine which compensation claims are valid.
He said that the airline also abandoned the case because it felt bad for the Dyczkowskis.
“It is unfortunate that, under the law, customers are inadvertently drawn into the process, which we recognize can create unease for them and which we want to avoid.”
But the couple’s lawyer, Peter Choe, who took on the case pro bono, has a different theory. He claims that a mechanical issue that was within the airline’s control was the main reason for the couple’s flight delay, so the airline dropped the case to avoid a public defeat.
“I believe that as they prepared for the oral hearing, Air Canada’s lawyers turned their full attention back to this case and concluded they would lose,” Choe, founder of Portmanteau Law in Toronto, wrote in an email.
“Why withdraw if they were going to win?”
Dyczkowski agrees, and says that at this point, he wishes Air Canada hadn’t dropped the case.
“We would rather have it dealt [with] at the hearing,” he said. “That would prove who was right and who was wrong.”
CTA stands by system
Several industry and legal experts have questioned the CTA complaints process where appeals wind up in court. But the CTA has continually defended the system.
“This is a key part of how the Canadian justice system works,” said CTA spokesperson Jadrino Huot in an email earlier this year.
Gradek argues that if an airline wants to dispute a CTA decision, it should take the agency to court, not the passenger.
“It is a decision made by the CTA, and it should be the CTA versus the airline in front of a judge,” he said.
But Jadrino said the CTA can’t be named in cases that wind up in Federal Court, because the agency wasn’t part of the original disputes.
“This is typical for judicial reviews [involving] government decision-making bodies,” he said.
As for Dyczkowski, he says if he ever winds up in court again with an airline, he now knows how to navigate the system.
When asked if he had a message for Air Canada, he replied, “Don’t mess with Dyczkowski.”
