Air passenger backlog is real — but not ‘three years,’ expert argues

A man looks across a section of Toronto's Pearson Airport as snow piles up around the area during heavy snowfall on Monday, Jan. 26, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young

Canadians filing air travel complaints are facing lengthy delays, with new data showing cases now take nearly three years on average to reach a decision - but one expert says the claim is alarming.

An analysis released by legal technology company Courtready found that air passenger complaints handled by the Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) are taking an average of 987 days to resolve, as of September 2025 - the longest wait time observed since January 2024.

The report clarifies that the 987 days is from flight date to decision date, not from the date when the CTA accepts a complaint.

According to the CTA, the backlog currently stands at about 92,500 complaints.

The growing backlog is adding to frustration for travellers seeking compensation for flight disruptions, cancellations and delays, Courtready said in a news release.

Tom Macintosh Zheng, co-founder of Courtready, said in an interview with CTVNews.ca Monday that the analysis is based on data published directly by the CTA, which is legally required under the Canadian Transportation Act to disclose specific information, including complaint outcomes, flight dates, decision dates and flight numbers.

He said the analysis focuses on finalized decisions because they offer the clearest view of how the system is actually functioning, rather than complaints that are still pending or unresolved.

In an email to CTVNews.ca, Zheng said the group consistently used the terms “flight date” and “decision date” in the report - noting that this distinction matters.

“It remains important for Canadians to understand that the end-to-end timeline (from flight date to decision date) is taking closer to three years,” he said in the email.

The data also shows the CTA is processing fewer cases overall, despite continued high demand. Decisions issued by the agency declined from 7,076 in the third quarter of 2024 to 4,301 in the third quarter of 2025.

At the same time, the gap between when a flight occurs and when a ruling is issued continues to widen. Courtready’s analysis found the average wait increased from 692 days in the third quarter of 2024 to 953 days in the third quarter of 2025.

“If Canadians can’t get a decision within a reasonable timeframe, they may lose faith in the system itself,” Zheng said. He added that the CTA still serves as an alternative to court, but long delays undermine access to justice, particularly when passengers are waiting years for relatively small claims to be resolved.

Monthly decision volumes are also hitting new lows, Courtready said. In September 2025, the CTA issued 1,348 air passenger complaint decisions, marking the second-lowest monthly total since March 2024 and a roughly 45 per cent drop from a peak of 2,485 recorded n August of that year.

Gaps within the analysis

Air Passenger Rights advocacy group president Gabor Lukacs cautioned that such analyses may overstate delays by measuring time between passenger’s flight and the agency’s final decision - rather than time between when a complaint it filed and when it is resolved.

“There is no data being reported publicly as to when a claim was filed today,” Lukacs said in an interview with CTVNews.ca Tuesday.

“It is crucially important that any criticism, any complaint about how the (CTA) function, be based on the truth, on verifiable data,” he added.

Lukacs said the discrepancy is that passengers do not immediately file a complaint with the CTA after their flight was disrupted, and the flight date is of no indication when the complaint was actually filed.

The CTA also pushed back on Coutready’s conclusions, saying the analysis does not accurately reflect how long complaints wait to be processed.

In a statement to CTVNews.ca Wednesday, the CTA said passengers can take up to one year after an incident to file a complaint and must first attempt to resolve the issue directly with the airline before turning to the CTA.

“This means that the flight date should not be used to evaluate the time it takes the CTA to process a complaint,” they wrote.

The CTA also said the study relies solely on orders published on its website, which represent only one way complaints are resolved. Some cases are settled directly with the airlines while others are closed administratively, the agency said.

For example, the agency said it closed 3,247 complaints in September 2025, compared with 1,348 cited in the study.

The agency said Courtready conflated individual orders with individual complaints as a single complaint can generate multiple orders if a passenger raises more than one issue, such as requesting both reimbursement and compensation.

“The CTA is currently trending towards its 4^th straight year receiving over 40,000 complaints, and in January 2026, it received its highest ever monthly total of complaints at 5,685," it said.

What’s driving the CTA backlog?

While passenger complaints at the CTA have surged in recent years, Lukacs said the backlog is not simply a matter of staffing levels or processing speed. Instead, he points to structural issues that together encourage airlines to contest claims and slow the resolution process.

Lukacs said one issue is how unreasonably complicated the Air Passenger Protection Regulations (APPR) is - a pain point for judges themselves.

Courts have previously noted that the APPR require extensive evidence-gathering and legal analysis, even for claims worth only a few hundred dollars, Lukacs said.

This means CTA officers must spend significant time reviewing records, assessing exemptions and interpreting rules - increasing the time needed to resolve each case, he explained.

According to the CTA, once a officer begins working on a file, it takes an average of 60 days to close a case, not including time spent waiting in the backlog.

Despite the federal government launching consultations, in the last two years, to revise the Air Passenger Protection Regulations (APPR), reforms have yet to take effect.

Lukacs also pointed to Parliament’s 2023 decision to require the CTA to implement a cost-recovery fee, which would make airlines help pay for complaint resolution process when disputes arise.

He said the absence of that fee means airlines can deny compensation at little cost, shifting the burden to passengers and the public system.

Without a financial consequence for forcing disputes into the complaints process, Lukacs argues it can be more profitable for airlines to delay or refuse compensation.

“Should the CTA be publishing far more? Absolutely yes. We are taking the CTA government attorney general to court over lack of transparency in those proceedings. Because, in our view, everything should be public,” Lukacs said.

In 2023, Parliament has also expanded the CTA’s authority to impose significantly higher administrative monetary penalties on airlines that violate passenger protection rules, specifically to $250,000 per passenger, per violation. However, Lukacs says those stronger penalties have not yet been fully implemented through regulation or applied in practice.

He argues airlines may see little downside to non-compliance, further increasing the number of disputes funnelled into the CTA system.

According to Lukacs, addressing the backlog would require simplifying the APPR, implementing the cost-recovery fee Parliament has already approved and using enforcement powers to deter repeat violations.

“More resources to process cases - that means more adjudicators. When you have more decision-makers, more people can actually have their day in court,” Zheng suggested as reform.