Legal professionals for one in every of Canada’s greatest airways had been in a B.C. courtroom on Monday, arguing in opposition to an injunction forward of a future trial over its reimbursement coverage.
Shopper advocacy group Air Passenger Rights has taken WestJet to courtroom, combating what it claims is a misleading reimbursement coverage.
At difficulty is how a lot WestJet says passengers can declare in reimbursement after being stranded resulting from occasions inside the airline’s management, and when the airline doesn’t present vouchers.
Till not too long ago, the corporate’s web site mentioned home passengers might declare as much as $150 an evening and worldwide passengers might declare as much as $200 an evening for motels. It additionally mentioned passengers might declare $45 a day for meals.
Air Passenger Rights mentioned no such limits exist beneath the legislation, and whereas WestJet has eliminated the language from its web site, the group needs the courtroom to grant an injunction stopping WestJet from utilizing the coverage in direct conversations with clients.
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“We wish to be sure that WestJet shouldn’t be going to place again the data (on its web site), that they’re going to publicize the truth that this continuing is ongoing, e mail passengers in regards to the want for them to hunt the data, and likewise ask that WestJet ought to be enjoined from speaking the misleading data by particular person emails to passengers,” Air Passenger Rights president Gabor Lukacs mentioned.
WestJet lawyer Michael Dery informed a B.C. courtroom on Monday an injunction shouldn’t be obligatory.
“These tips, these webpages, these communications are not occurring,” he mentioned.
Air Passenger Rights disagrees, and has filed an affidavit it says reveals the corporate continued to quote the coverage in emails with clients.
Dery informed the courtroom an injunction can be untimely and shouldn’t be issued earlier than info have been argued and settled in a civil trial scheduled for January 2026.
However Lucaks mentioned that’s precisely why the injunction is important.
“The aim of an interlocutory injunction is simply to protect the established order, it isn’t to have one winner or one other,” he mentioned.
“It’s only a state of affairs the place you don’t need folks to lose rights simply due to the passage of time.”
The B.C. Supreme Court docket choose has reserved his resolution for a future date.
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