Flight Claim ads banned in both Montreal and Toronto airports
Both Montreal’s Pierre Elliott Trudeau and Toronto’s Pearson International airports have refused to display an ad campaign from Flight Claim.
Flight Claim is a new company that fights to win compensation for wronged airline customers. For 25% of the awarded compensation, Flight Claim will fight with the passenger against the airline to ensure that they receive reimbursement for dealing with issues such as delays, cancellations and overbooked flights.
General Manager of Flight Claim, Jacob Charbonneau claimed that most customers do not know that they are entitled to compensation when airlines cancel or over-book flights. The ads were being put in place in the hopes of educating passengers about their compensation rights.
"We're just there to protect and help the rights of the passengers, so we feel it's kind of sad that we're not able to publicize in a free market," said Charbonneau.
The Montreal and Toronto airports claim to have different reasons as to why they are refusing to promote Flight Claim’s ads.
Flight Claim signed a $73,000 contract with Montreal’s Pierre Elliot Trudeau airport to run their ad on screens in baggage claim. After just 4 days however, the airport pulled the ad, claiming that they did not want to cause any trouble for the airlines.
"Passengers, but also airlines, are our customers," said Montreal airport spokesperson Stéphanie Lepage. "We did not want to have a conflict between airlines and passengers."
Lepage went on to say that agreeing to run the ad was a mistake, and should never have been approved in the first place.
Toronto’s Pearson International airport on the other hand, refused Charbonneau’s request to run the ads from the get go. The Greater Toronto Airports Authority rejected the ad claiming that it would confuse customers as the federal government is implementing their own compensation guidelines in the new air passenger bill of rights.