Yahoo Finance Flair Airlines, Swoop received the most complaints per flight, CTA data show
Two Alberta-based ultra-low-cost carriers received the highest number of complaints per 100 flights flown among Canadian airlines, according to data compiled by the Canadian Transportation Agency.
Flair Airlines Ltd. and Swoop Inc. topped the list of Canadian airlines with the most air travel complaints submitted by passengers between April and September, on a relative basis.
Flair Airlines had 13.7 complaints per 100 flights in that period, ranking first, while WestJet Airlines Ltd. subsidiary Swoop was slightly behind with 12.6 complaints per 100 flights.
The rest of the airlines, including Air Canada, Air Transat A.T. Inc., Sunwing Airlines Inc. and Westjet, had single-digit complaints per 100 flights.
The Canadian Transportation Agency said the new data, which will be updated on a quarterly basis, aimed to “provide Canadians with additional information about the air travel sector.”
The period between July and the end of September, notably a busy time for airlines as people travel for summer vacation, had almost double the number of complaints for all Canadian airlines compared to the prior quarter.
According to the CTA, it received 9.3 complaints per 100 flights for Flair Airlines between April and the end of June, while complaints almost doubled to 18 per 100 flights the following quarter.
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Air Transat, which received the fewest complaints among the Canadian airlines also saw complaints double in the third quarter, to 2.9 from 1.4 complaints per 100 flights in previous three-month period.
The agency said its data is based on all of the air travel complaints submitted to the CTA and while the data “has been reviewed and is accurate,” complaints have not been vetted by a CTA case officer.
The numbers only refer to the total number of complaints the CTA received and do not indicate whether or not an airline actually met its regulatory requirements, it said.
It added that 97 per cent of complaints are resolved informally through facilitation or mediation, while others are handled in a formal adjudication process.
The CTA also provided data on the number of complaints it compiled on foreign-operated airlines. It listed Qatar Airways with the most number of complaints at 24.1 per 100 flights between April and September, while at the other end of the scale, Caribbean Airlines Ltd. and Alia Royal Jordanian Airlines PLC both received just one complaint per 100 flights.
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