Air Canada - departing from UK - compensation options (Canadian or UK better)

JWolf

Hello,

I recently had a flight with Air Canada from Heathrow to Toronto cancelled the day before we were flying (delaying us for more than 18 hours).

I am trying to find the best way to claim the maximum compensation and wondered whether anyone has had experience claiming compensation under the Canadian Air Passenger Protection or UK passenger rights regulations.

We can only submit a claim with one of the options, and the Canadian option seems to give a greater amount of compensation (roughly £600 compared to the UK option of £520), but from what I have read, it may be more slippery with what Air Canada deem as situations outside of their control or required for safety purposes.

The official disruption reason was: “We're sorry but this flight is cancelled due to the aircraft scheduled for this flight not being available”, which seems to me as something very much in their control.

Has anyone had a similar issue, or does anyone have any suggestions?  

Our re-scheduled flight the next day was also delayed by officially 3 hours in the email we received before the flight - “This flight is delayed due to additional time needed to address pilot scheduling issues.” – but I did not notice whether we arrived just within the 3 hours meaning we would not be owed compensation. Any ideas if there is a way of finding this out?

Many thanks for your help.

eskbanker

JWolf said:

The official disruption reason was: “We're sorry but this flight is cancelled due to the aircraft scheduled for this flight not being available”, which seems to me as something very much in their control.

Not necessarily - if the aircraft wasn't available because its previous flight (presumably from Canada to the UK) was cancelled due to extraordinary circumstances then that would potentially give the airline a valid reason not to pay compensation, but if it was a technical fault, for example, then that would be different, so the underlying root cause is important.

JWolf said:

Our re-scheduled flight the next day was also delayed by officially 3 hours in the email we received before the flight - “This flight is delayed due to additional time needed to address pilot scheduling issues.” – but I did not notice whether we arrived just within the 3 hours meaning we would not be owed compensation. Any ideas if there is a way of finding this out?

If this was within the past week or so, then public domain sites such as FlightAware or FlightRadar24 will usually show sufficient tracking data to establish this.

Alan_Bowen

I would strongly advise you to stick with UK Regulation 261. Air Canada and other Canadian airlines are pushing back hard in Canada against government regulation and during Covid, Canadian airlines were some of the slowest in offering refunds. 

JWolf

I have just submitted the disruption compensation claim form on the Air Canada website and it didn't give me a choice anyway, but thank you for your advice. 

Any idea how long these claims tend to take?