Sunwing has been fined $694,500 and will be required to compensate passengers after a federal regulator found that the airline broke rules during an ice storm that led to widespread delays last spring.
that 77 Sunwing flights were delayed by more than four hours and 15 flights were stuck on tarmacs for more than 90 minutes between April 14 and 18.
A total of 16,255 passengers were on board the affected flights to or from Toronto and Montreal. Five hundred and seventy-eight complained to the CTA.
One Windsor, Ont., family told 麻豆传媒 at the time that they waited for 18 hours in the airport in Cancun, Mexico, only to be told they wouldn鈥檛 get a flight until the following day. The delay lasted nearly 30 hours.
The CTA said Monday that the airline must compensate passengers for 鈥渞easonable expenses incurred as a result of flight delays experienced by passengers or loss, damage or delay to passengers' baggage.鈥�
Expenses may include things like hotel rooms, transfers to hotels, meal expenses and lost baggage. Compensation cannot include things like inconvenience, stress, pain and suffering, or loss of vacation time, the CTA said.
The agency鈥檚 report says that the problems were caused by a combination of severe weather, staff shortages at the service provider Swissport, widespread communication issues and 鈥淪unwing鈥檚 business model.鈥�
The report says that although it is clear the ice storm was 鈥渢he initial trigger for the breakdown in service,鈥� the storm was forecast for days and Sunwing did not cancel any of its flights, 鈥渋n contrast to other carriers.鈥�
In a statement to CTVNews.ca, a Sunwing spokesperson offered the airline鈥檚 鈥渟incere apologies鈥� and said it is committed to 鈥渃ontinuously improving our service and communications.鈥�
鈥淲e have always taken pride in our award-winning service and were deeply disappointed by the customer service and communication gaps that occurred following the unprecedented ice storm that took place at this time last year,鈥� the spokesperson wrote.
鈥淭he CTA has acknowledged that this disruption in service was chiefly caused by two external factors listed as severe weather conditions and critical staffing shortage on the part of our ground handling service provider, Swissport, as well as two internal factors which were listed as Sunwing鈥檚 business model and communication issues,鈥� the statement goes on.
鈥淪ince the storm occurred, Sunwing has changed ground handler, invested in new commercial operations leadership, and has worked to onboard new industry leading systems to better manage scheduling, contingency planning, and communications during disruptions,鈥� the airline added.
