The Trudeau government is promising to beef up air passenger protection rules in the wake of a chaotic holiday travel season that saw hundreds of Canadian stranded far from home. Speaking to a special session of a House of Commons committee on Thursday (Jan. 12), Transport Minister Omar Alghabra suggested that Ottawa is looking to changing regulations so that more of the onus is on airlines to show why they don’t have to compensate a mistreated customer, The Globe and Mail reports. According to the Globe, Alghabra said passengers are too often told by airlines that they’re not entitled to Read more
January 2023
Canada’s major airlines are undergoing a grilling in Ottawa today, and the head of Sunwing said his company could’ve done a better job handling holiday travel chaos. Summoned to a House of Commons committee that wants answers to questions about the holiday travel chaos that left many Canadians stranded overseas, Sunwing president Len Corrado was asked about cancellations that left hundreds of Canadians stranded in Mexico. He also was questioned about why Sunwing cancelled all flights to Saskatchewan over Christmas. Corrado apologized for the way the situation was handled. “The bottom line is, we know we could have done better,” Read more
Canada’s first Nobu hotel will open sometime later this year. Nobu Hospitality today said it will open five new hotels in 2023, including Toronto, Rome, Marrakech, Atlantic City and San Sebastián, Spain. With recent announcements of Bangkok and Abu Dhabi, the 32nd property to join the portfolio, the brand continues to grow globally. This year will mark Nobu Hotels’ 10th anniversary following the opening of Nobu Hotel Caesars Palace in Las Vegas in 2013. For almost 30 years the Nobu brand has been synonymous with modern luxury and instinctive design, a commitment to fine ingredients and incredible food, and an Read more
A program that allows Canadian travellers to speed through security and U.S. customs could be back to full strength by spring. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and U.S. President Joe Biden met yesterday in Mexico City. Following the meeting, it was announced that the Nexus travel program is slowly returning to “normal” operation. Officials said the agreement between the U.S. Customs and Border Protection office (CBP) and the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) will allow Nexus offices to re-open in select Canadian airports. Nexus offices in other locations have been open for the past year or so, but a dispute Read more
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration says normal U.S. air traffic operations are gradually resuming. “Normal air traffic operations are resuming gradually across the U.S. following an overnight outage to the Notice to Air Missions system that provides safety info to flight crews,” the FAA said on its Twitter feed. “The ground stop has been lifted.” The FAA suffered a “system outage” over night and, at one point, ordered airlines to pause all domestic departures until 9 a.m. Eastern Time to allow the agency to validate the integrity of flight and safety information. The FAA supplies critical information to pilots and Read more
