International Air Transport Association v. Canada (Transportation Agency), 2024 SCC 30

Does this apply to you?

This case applies to every APPR compensation claim on an international flight. Sixteen airlines and two trade bodies asked the courts to strike down the APPR's fixed compensation for delays, cancellations and denied boarding on international routes. The Supreme Court of Canada refused. If an airline tells you the Montreal Convention means it does not have to pay APPR compensation, this decision is the answer.

What happened

Canada made the Montreal Convention part of its law in 2003. The Convention sets uniform rules and liability caps for airlines on international flights. Its Article 29 says that "any action for damages" for international carriage can only be brought under the Convention's rules. Lawyers call this the exclusivity principle.

In 2018 Parliament told the Canadian Transportation Agency to write passenger protection rules. The Air Passenger Protection Regulations came into force in 2019. They require airlines to pay fixed compensation when a delay, cancellation or denied boarding is within the airline's control and not required for safety.

The International Air Transport Association, Airlines for America, and airlines including Air Canada, Porter, Lufthansa, Air France, British Airways, United, Delta and American challenged the rules in the Federal Court of Appeal. They said the compensation was an "action for damages" barred by Article 29, so the Agency had no power to make it. The Federal Court of Appeal upheld the rules, except for one section on temporary loss of baggage. The airlines appealed to the Supreme Court.

What the airlines argued

The airlines said the Montreal Convention is the only source of airline liability on international flights. Any money a passenger gets for a delay is "damages", however the law labels it. So the APPR compensation conflicts with the Convention and is invalid.

What the Supreme Court decided

Article 29 covers court-style claims for individual losses. The court read the Convention by its ordinary meaning, context and purpose. An "action for damages" is a judicial or judicial-like proceeding that seeks money to compensate one person for the actual harm someone else caused. The surrounding articles speak of damage "sustained", court costs, plaintiffs and limitation periods. That is the world the Convention governs.

APPR compensation is not that. The amount depends only on the size of the airline and how late you arrive. It does not depend on any harm you suffered. The court gave an example: a passenger who uses a delay to visit a relative gets the same amount as a passenger badly inconvenienced. There is no proof of loss, no due diligence defence, and no contributory negligence defence. The court called the payments "statutory entitlements under a consumer protection scheme", and compared them to minimum employment standards.

The two laws stand together. The Convention still governs court claims for real, individual losses, with its liability caps. The APPR adds a fixed minimum standard of treatment. Nothing in the Convention shows Canada gave up the power to set such standards. The cost to airlines is a condition of access to the Canadian market.

Two more airline arguments failed. The fixed amounts are not "non-compensatory damages", because that phrase describes a type of damages inside a damages action, not a separate category. And the fact that a passenger might collect the amount in court does not turn it into damages, because the claim is for a fixed sum already owed.

The appeal was dismissed with costs to the Attorney General of Canada. The Federal Court of Appeal's ruling on the temporary-loss-of-baggage section was not appealed and stands.

Why this matters

• APPR compensation on international flights is valid law. The airlines' Montreal Convention argument is closed.
• You do not have to prove you were harmed to get APPR compensation. The airline cannot argue it took reasonable care or that you contributed to the problem.
• APPR compensation and a Montreal Convention claim for real losses are separate. The court did not decide how the two interact in one case, for example whether one is deducted from the other.
• The decision covers international flights. It says nothing about the rules for flights within Canada.
• The court did not decide how or where a passenger enforces the entitlement in court. The BC Court of Appeal answered that for the BC tribunal two years later in Air Passenger Rights v. WestJet.

The details