Cancelled flight? How to get a full refund, and why Air Canada has more than its fair share of customer refund complaints

If an airline cancels your flight, in many cases you are entitled to a complete refund, but some carriers try to avoid payment

Support groups advise reminding airlines of the regulations, and if that fails, getting a credit card chargeback

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If an airline cancels your flight, you are legally entitled to a full refund in the same medium you paid for the ticket. Most countries enforce this, but some, Canada included, don’t seem to offer the same protection.

Published: 5:00am, 2 Jul 2020Updated: 8:54pm, 25 Nov 2020

Grounded by Covid-19, many of the world’s airlines have begun to resemble dubious strangers hanging around school playgrounds with offers of confectionery. “Look what I have here,” they say. “Change your dates or cancel your flight altogether. It’s free! Come and see.”

Sitting squeezed into a metal tube for hours, breathing the same air as a crowd of strangers has probably never seemed less appealing, so the chance to delay or cancel a flight without penalty may be an unexpected blessing.

If the airline cancels the flight, a complete refund may be your legal right, but accept their offer and cancel yourself and the resulting terms and conditions – the requirement to rebook only on exactly the same route and within a limited time, for instance – may leave a bitter aftertaste.

“The best advice in this situation is not to cancel until the airline cancels,” says Dr Gábor Lukács, president of Canadian non-profit organisation Air Passenger Rights.

Most Asian airlines are willing to offer rescheduling and cancellation without penalty. Photo: Indranil Mukherjee/AFP via Getty Images

Airlines are keen to hang on to passengers’ money. Some claim that widespread suspension of the right to compensation means customers have no right to a full refund, and others that the offer of a credit voucher with many limitations is the same as money back. Both claims are false.