Decision No. 81-C-A-2023

[1] The applicants purchased round-trip, economy-class tickets from the respondent for travel from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Orlando, United States, departing on March 29, 2020. The applicants’ tickets were cancelled on March 17, 2020, and they were provided with a Travel Bank credit, valid for two years, for the full amount that they paid for their tickets. However, the applicants seek a refund to their original form of payment.

[2] In this decision, the role of the Canadian Transportation Agency (Agency) is to decide whether the respondent properly applied the terms and conditions that were applicable to the tickets that the applicants purchased, as set out in its Tariff.

[3] If the Agency finds that the respondent failed to properly apply its Tariff, it may direct the respondent to take the corrective measures that it considers appropriate or to pay compensation for any expense incurred by a person adversely affected by the respondent’s failure.

[4] Although the respondent did not file an answer to the application, the Agency has reviewed the evidence filed by the applicants and finds that it is more likely than not that the applicants cancelled their tickets. It was the applicants who contacted the respondent on March 17, 2020, and discussed the consequences of not travelling on their itinerary. The applicants do not object to the fact that they did not travel. There is no evidence to indicate that it was the respondent who initiated the cancellation or that the round-trip flight in question did not take place.

[5] Under the respondent’s Tariff, when a passenger cancels an economy-class ticket, they are not entitled to a refund to the original form of payment.

[6] Therefore, the Agency finds that the respondent properly applied the terms and conditions set out in its Tariff when it did not provide the applicants with a refund to the original form of payment.

[7] Accordingly, the Agency dismisses the application.