“We want our pilots to be entirely free from any financial consideration when they take a safety-related decision,” WestJet CEO Alexis von Hoensbroech said

Safety related delays and cancelations are not the problem. The airlines not having enough staff to fly the planes is the problem. Poor planning by the airlines is the problem. Lying and calling those YOU problems safety problems IS the ptoblem.

The loophole is allowing airlines to call any delay or cancellation a “safety issue” to deny passengerd compensation.

We pay for a an agreed service at an agreed time. If the airlines don’t provide the service as and when described we should be compensated. The government is just closing a loophole that allows the airlines to decide how, when, and even if they are going to provide the service we paid for. 

  • Yardy Sardley@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    Pilots shouldn’t be pressured into making unsafe decisions? Then stop pressuring them to make unsafe decisions. If the plane isn’t safe to fly for any reason, then it doesn’t take off, period. It shouldn’t be a choice for anyone.

    The way airlines are acting these days, I can’t shake the feeling that the business of flying people from place to place is not the primary focus. It seems more like they facilitate flights mostly for the purpose of luring people into their poorly-lit wing of the airport where their goons can extract the real profits.

    • Nougat@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      The chain of incentives is like this:

      • Add regulations which cause airlines to have to provide more compensation for delays and cancellations
      • Airline is incentivized to have fewer delays and cancellations than before
      • Airline pressures pilots more to minimize delays and cancellations
      • More planes with safety concerns take off than used to
      • More incidents occur

      I don’t know how to economically motivate an airline to reduce delays and cancellations and reduce safety-related incidents at the same time. Those two things seem mutually exclusive. It’s like how soldiers beginning to wear metal helmets “caused” head injuries to increase. The extra head injuries would have been deaths. The extra delays and cancellations would have been safety-related incidents.

      Penalizing airlines for delays and cancellations is like telling soldiers they’re not allowed to wear metal helmets.

      • jadero@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        Penalizing airlines for delays and cancellations is like telling soldiers they’re not allowed to wear metal helmets.

        I suppose it depends on how you define “penalization”. I don’t think a straight refund should be considered a penalty.

      • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        I feel like “Penalize them even harder for taking off an unsafe flight” is the obvious answer here?

        Like, your analogy with the helmets doesn’t really fit here, because that’s an issue of survivor bias, but what we’re talking about here is incentives.

        It’s only a problem if unsafe flights are the most profitable option. They don’t have to be.

    • MapleEngineer@lemmy.caOP
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      1 year ago

      Air Canada isn’t an airline. It’s a giant corporation whose main business is extracting subsidies from the federal government. It pretends to be an airline to do that. That’s why it treats its passengers like an inconvenient annoyance.

      • GrindingGears@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        Lol it’s basically like those pyramid schemes all those stay at home moms pedal on the Facebook. I mean sure, it has a product, that is obsolete, overpriced and of questionably poor quality. But its really just about ensnaring more people to get more funds from the government for the people at the top.

        Air Canada is literally a pyramid scheme.