“Flair says it cancelled the flight because the airplane for the flight experienced bird strikes while landing in Vancouver,” tribunal member Jeffrey Drozdiak’s decision said.
But the airline argued that it should not have to pay.
But Donner and Broadhurst did their own research, consulting the Civil Aviation Daily Occurrence Reporting System – a federal database that tracks incidents including medical emergencies, navigation errors and flight diversions.
“The results show that Flair did not experience any reported bird strikes during that time. In its dispute response, Flair says the tower sends any occurrences to Transport Canada for input into CADORS,” Drozdiak wrote.
Although this wouldn’t really have made a difference in this case, I just want to point out that services like ExpertFlyer will allow you to access the global distribution system where airlines record the actual reasons for delays in their flight status displays for travel industry employees. You can often times find that the safety issue that they’re talking about at the gate is really just a crew shortage issue. There’s been a few cases where having this comment has basically come in handy for disproving the airline’s reason for denying me compensation. And you can eventually use it in a small claims court if you really need to.