Feds, consumer advocate square off in court over air passenger refunds

In the early months of COVID-19's spread, airlines cancelled hundreds of thousands of flights and offered company vouchers to customers instead of refunds.

"By giving the public a false sense of legitimacy to the airlines’ unlawful actions, the CTA’s statement on vouchers defeated existing federal laws for refunds and unlawfully interfered with passengers’ credit card chargebacks and travel insurance claims," the group stated in court filings. Air Passenger Rights lawyer Simon Lin argued the CTA's statement about vouchers was prompted by a request from Air Transat to the Transport Department.

In court on Wednesday, the judges seemed to cast doubt on parts of Air Passenger Rights' argument, asking repeatedly for examples of agency decisions that denied refunds to passengers on the basis of the CTA's voucher statement. They also questioned whether the regulator's statement came at the behest of airlines.

Three days after a letter from Transat's chief executive at the time asking for confirmation that"no refunds to passengers are required," the CTA posted its statement, saying that airlines could generally issue flight credits or vouchers to customers whose flights had been cancelled because of the pandemic, rather than refunding them.

Source: Holiday News (holidaynews.net)

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