Sunwing, which has had to deal with issues with its computer network since Monday morning, must manually register all of its passengers, causing significant delays at the various destinations served by the carrier.
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Mahram Ibrahimi, director of the International Observatory, explains: “If the check-in and boarding book are incompatible, the plane will not have the right to fly, it will not be insured and no company will take off in this case.” Aeronautics and Civil Aviation in an interview with LCN.
According to the expert, the main problem in the Sunwing case is not a crash, which could also be a computer attack, but rather the way passengers are treated, in an “unacceptable” way.
“The computer problem, the error, the cyberattack, happened in the biggest companies. Delta, Francis Airlines, Lufthans in this world. The question is how do we deal with this thing,” the aviation expert explains.
He considers that the company should be transparent quickly in the public arena and keep passengers informed of the situation.
“There we don’t care, but the whole passengers. Even in short messages there is no sympathy. There are families who are left to fend for themselves. In 2022! We have the phone of all these people, we can text them, we can tell them to wait!”, for example Mr. Ebrahimi.
Commuters in Montreal Trudeau were stuck in the airlock for more than two hours yesterday, some of them starting to panic, including the children.
“Leaders know they have to report. I find this unacceptable,” the specialist regrets.
If Mahram Ebrahimi determines that Sunwing customers may be entitled to statutory damages, the burden of proof will fall on the passengers.
“We will have to show and prove that this failure was foreseeable and that the company was negligent if the failure occurred. It is a bit complicated legally. This is the main weakness in our system, our charter,” regrets Mr. Ebrahimi.
“However, we can go to class action and if we can show that Sunwing has failed [à ses obligations] We can hope for compensation.”
The company said Tuesday morning that it is doing everything in its power to bring its customers to their destination.
“Our check-in system provider continues to experience a system issue affecting our flight operations. We sincerely apologize to all of our customers whose travel plans have been affected.
Listen to Genevieve Petersen’s interview with Mehran Ebrahimi, Director of the Observatory of Aviation and Civil Aviation, on QUB Radio:
Our team works day and night to find alternative ways to get customers to their destination or on return flights. We have successfully processed over 15 flights since yesterday and intend to manually process as many flights as possible today, subject to airport restrictions, curfews and necessary crew reassignments.
The third-party system provider, Airline Choice, continues to work with the relevant authorities to find a solution to the system issue as soon as possible. In the meantime, as we continue to process flights manually, additional delays are expected and customers are advised to sign up for flight alerts on Sunwing.ca.”
