A couple from eastern Newfoundland had to pay almost $1,700 for a night at a motel in Laval, Queensland. Air Canada refused to give them hotel vouchers after their flight was delayed, leaving the couple to foot the hefty bill out of their own pocket.
Craig Sharpe of Bay Roberts told CBC News that he and his husband were returning from Newark Liberty International Airport on Saturday when their flight to Montreal was delayed due to an earlier aircraft delay.
Sharpe says an Air Canada employee in Newark assured the couple that their now 50-minute layover would be enough time to get through customs and board their flight to St. John’s.
It wasn’t like that.
Sharpe recalled thinking, “We’re going to miss our flight,” when he noticed another delay on the runway at Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport.
Sharpe says Air Canada had no hotel rooms available for passengers who missed their connecting flight to St. John’s and were stranded overnight in Montreal, waiting nearly 12 hours for the next flight east.
Sharpe says the couple called a hotel that had reserved 30 rooms for Air Canada passengers using vouchers, but the employee handling the delay said she didn’t have any vouchers to give them.
“She said, ‘There is no hotel, all the hotels are gone,'” Sharpe said.
“She said, ‘All you have to do is find a room. Then, if you get a room, (Air Canada) will refund you.'”
Air Canada said the flight from Newark to Montreal was delayed due to a “maintenance issue” with the original aircraft and was therefore forced to change aircraft.
“We will provide rooms to customers who we determine are eligible under certain circumstances at the time. However, we also encourage customers to submit a claim, which we will then review, as we did in this case,” the airline said in an email to CBC News.
The city had floods
Two days earlier, there had been a one-day hotel strike in Montreal, and severe flooding occurred in the region over the weekend.
Due to the hotel shortage, the couple could only find one room in Laval – and it cost $1,455.63 for one night plus a $200 deposit, which Sharpe says has not yet been refunded.
You paid for the room out of your own pocket and are now gathering evidence to file a claim with Air Canada.
“You have to make a lot of different applications … just to see if you get compensation for the 12-hour delay. They say they need three days to decide if you get it,” he said.
Rooms listed on the Olux Hotel Motel and Suites website ranged in price from $104.30 to $250 when checked Tuesday afternoon.
CBC News has also contacted Olux Hotels and Quebec’s Consumer Protection Agency for comment on the increase in hotel prices.
The Air Passenger Protection Act requires airlines to provide their passengers with hotel accommodation if the delay is within their control and the delay lasts overnight.
Sharpe says he would normally have preferred to sleep at the airport rather than spend so much on a hotel room, but his husband objected, saying Sharpe had to work the next day and could not afford to stay up all night.
Sharpe said Air Canada told him it could take two months for the refund to arrive.
“It was a terrible, terrible situation,” he said. “It’s just so reckless that a major company would act like that. It’s crazy.”
Download our free CBC News app to sign up for push notifications from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador. Click here to visit our landing page.
