On December 12, 2011, Chief Justice Blais of the Federal Court of Appeal of Canada (“FCA”) granted a suspension (a “stay”) of a rare structural injunctive order, pending an appeal commenced by Air Canada (click here for decision). The Plaintiffs, Michel and Lynda Thibodeau, had initially logged eight complaints with the Commission of Official Languages concerning the lack of bilingual services on eight different Air Canada flights.  Due to its former Crown Corporation status, and unlike other Canadian airline carriers, Air Canada is required to comply with the Official Languages Act (the “Act”). At trial, the Federal Court of Canada ruled that the airline failed to comply with the Act’s requirement for the provision of bilingual services on four separate occasions,…
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In a previous post, we discussed amendments to the Aeronautics Act which allowed Canadian airlines to provide passenger information to the United States Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) for international flights that not only land in, but also overfly the United States.  The specifics of the information to be provided was to be set out in future regulatory amendments.  The new amendments came into effect on September 30, 2011. Under the U.S. Secure Flight program, air carriers are required to share certain passenger information for flights travelling over continental U.S. airspace to a third country.  The information is to be provided to the DHS approximately 72 hours before departure.  In situations where the reservation was created within 72 hours of departure, the information must be submitted as…
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