Airline Denied Your Compensation Claim? Know Your Rights as a Passenger

When Airlines Deny Compensation

Flight delays, cancellations, and lost luggage are among the most common travel disruptions Canadians face. When an airline refuses to compensate passengers — often citing weather or other factors as a justification — many people assume there is nothing they can do. The legal landscape, however, is more nuanced than airlines often suggest.

The recent Divisional Court decision in Singh v. Air Canada, 2026 ONSC 2983, sheds light on several legal issues that arise in airline delay litigation, including the assignment of claims between family members, the limits of the champerty doctrine, and the procedural protections available to claimants whose cases are threatened with being struck.

The Facts of Singh v. Air Canada

Alka Singh purchased Air Canada tickets for her sister and niece to fly from Winnipeg to New Delhi for a family wedding in December 2023. A snowstorm closed Munich airport, and Air Canada rerouted the flight to St. John's, Newfoundland. The passengers missed their connecting flights, were stranded, had to pay for hotels and meals, and their luggage was delayed for nine days — meaning they had to buy replacement clothing and essentials when they finally arrived in India.

Air Canada denied all compensation, pointing to the weather as the cause of the disruption. Ms. Singh filed a claim in Small Claims Court, but Air Canada brought a motion to strike the entire action — and initially succeeded at the motion level.

Can a Family Member Who Paid for the Tickets File the Claim?

One of the central legal issues in Singh was whether Ms. Singh could pursue the claim at all. She was not a passenger on the flight — her sister and niece were. They had assigned their claims to her under section 53(1) of the Conveyancing and Law of Property Act (CLPA), which permits the assignment of "any debt or other legal thing in action."

The Small Claims Court motion judge found the assignment invalid, reasoning that the CLPA only applied to real property. The Divisional Court rejected this interpretation. The statutory language is clear: "any" property, not just real property. This means contractual claims — including claims arising from airline ticket purchases — can be validly assigned.

This is an important principle for families where one person books and pays for travel on behalf of others. The person who bore the financial loss can pursue the claim directly, provided the assignment is properly documented.

The Champerty Question

Air Canada also argued that the assignment constituted champerty — the officious intermeddling of a stranger in litigation for a share of the proceeds. The Divisional Court found this argument had no merit on the facts. Ms. Singh was not a stranger to the transaction; she had paid for the tickets and was seeking to recover her own losses. The court emphasized that familial relationships may constitute a valid motive for supporting litigation, citing Fredrickson v. Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, [1986] 3 W.W.R. 63.

For practitioners, this is a useful reminder that champerty requires more than an assignment between related parties. There must be evidence of officious intermeddling or a speculative profit motive — neither of which was present here.

The Regulatory Framework

Beyond the common law, Canadian air passengers have statutory protections under the Air Passenger Protection Regulations (APPR), made under the Canada Transportation Act. The APPR establishes minimum standards for compensation and assistance in delay and cancellation scenarios, distinguishing between disruptions within and outside the airline's control. The APPR also requires airlines to rebook passengers and provide certain amenities during delays, regardless of the cause.

It is worth noting that the APPR does not preclude common law claims for damages. A passenger may pursue both a regulatory complaint through the Canadian Transportation Agency and a civil claim in court, though the relationship between these remedies continues to develop in the case law.

Procedural Protections: The Right to Amend

The Singh decision also reinforces an important procedural safeguard. The motion judge had refused to consider Ms. Singh's request to amend her pleadings before striking the claim. The Divisional Court held this was an error, citing PMC York Properties v. Siudak, 2022 ONCA 635, for the principle that leave to amend should be denied only in the clearest of cases. Courts should always consider whether a deficiency in the pleadings can be cured by amendment before striking a claim — a principle rooted in access to justice.

Practical Implications

For passengers considering litigation against an airline, Singh v. Air Canada offers several practical lessons. Assignments of claims between family members are valid under the CLPA and do not automatically give rise to champerty concerns. Claims should not be abandoned simply because a motion to strike succeeds at first instance — appellate courts review legal errors on a correctness standard and will intervene where the law has been misapplied. And even where pleadings are imperfect, courts have a duty to consider whether they can be fixed before taking the drastic step of striking them entirely.