Two Flair passengers in B.C. were told a bird strike cancelled their flight. Then they did their own research
Two Flair passengers in B.C. were told a bird strike cancelled their flight. Then they did their own research
Flair Airlines was ordered to compensate two passengers after a B.C. tribunal found there was no evidence a bird strike actually caused a flight cancellation.
"Flair says it cancelled the flight because the airplane for the flight experienced bird strikes while landing in Vancouver," tribunal member Jeffrey Drozdiak's decision said.
But the airline argued that it should not have to pay.
But Donner and Broadhurst did their own research, consulting the Civil Aviation Daily Occurrence Reporting System – a federal database that tracks incidents including medical emergencies, navigation errors and flight diversions.
"The results show that Flair did not experience any reported bird strikes during that time. In its dispute response, Flair says the tower sends any occurrences to Transport Canada for input into CADORS," Drozdiak wrote.
Isn’t that fraud?
Hey prosecutors! Pretend it is a poor person stealing food and prosecute them.
I mean the airline.
So what was the actual reason for cancellation? Aircraft so undermaintained they didn't have enough functional ones to cover all flights, and that one lost the coin flip? Multiple air crew down with COVID? Exec wanted the plane to take some friends golfing in Palm Springs? Seems like even the tribunal looking into this never did find out, although they did make the airline pay up.
The CRT doesn’t have investigative powers. That would probably fall to some ombudsman, though I don’t know which one.
I suppose it just seems incredible to me that the airline didn't even try to come up with another excuse after they were caught out on the first one. Maybe it really was an executive recreational jaunt to Palm Springs.
Although this wouldn't really have made a difference in this case, I just want to point out that services like ExpertFlyer will allow you to access the global distribution system where airlines record the actual reasons for delays in their flight status displays for travel industry employees. You can often times find that the safety issue that they're talking about at the gate is really just a crew shortage issue. There's been a few cases where having this comment has basically come in handy for disproving the airline's reason for denying me compensation. And you can eventually use it in a small claims court if you really need to.