Hopefully there's actual enforcement mechanisms down there. There's similar rules in place for Canadian airlines, but they've been experiencing considerable success in just ... ignoring them outright by lying about the delays or their causes (e.g., if a plane loses power on the runway, but it's cold out, that has to be weather, sucks to be the passengers!) and forcing the government to impose penalties or settlements on a case-by-case basis that can take years.
I was just going to say, it’s nice in theory but I’ve had some horror story experiences in the last year or two that don’t support optimism.
Like, a flight taking off an hour late. My friends and I are sitting in an airport in Greece, well beyond our boarding time, and we see the flight crew saunter in, coffee in hands, not a care in the world.
This led to us missing our connecting flight. The airline put us in a hotel and bought us dinner, but we collectively lost vacation days on top of what we’d already used, and I don’t believe we were even fully reimbursed for costs incurred.
Due to the wording of the setup, all four of us should have been given compensation in addition to that.
But it was denied.
Why?
The delay was “security related”.
Fuck off with that shit. Even if there was some matter behind the scenes, it’s an entirely opaque box as far as the consumers know.
Or the time my flight to Gencon was cancelled 1 hour before takeoff, as I sat waiting for boarding to be called, for unexpected maintenance reasons. So instead I got to fly the next day at 6am. My compensation was two $15 food vouchers. So they bought me breakfast for my troubles, and sent me home on their dime, but using an airport voucher to get back from the downtown core was more trouble than it was worth, especially in the wee hours of the morning.
The flight to Greece was its own series of absolute clusterfucks.
Air transat might get off my shit list one day.
Today is not that day.