If your flight to, from or within Canada arrives three or more hours late and the cause was within the airline’s control, a large carrier owes you CAD 400, rising to CAD 700 at six hours and CAD 1,000 at nine hours.
A small carrier owes CAD 125, CAD 250 and CAD 500 for the same bands.
Two things decide whether you actually get paid: the size of the airline, and which of three control categories the disruption falls into under Canada’s Air Passenger Protection Regulations (APPR). Only the first, within the airline’s control, pays cash.
The rules cover all flights to, from and within Canada, including flights operated by foreign airlines, so they apply whether you are on Air Canada, WestJet or a carrier connecting you onward from a Canadian gateway.
The APPR compensation matrix
| Within airline’s control | Within control, required for safety | Outside airline’s control | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cash compensation | Yes | CAD 0 | CAD 0 |
| Food, drink, hotel | Yes | Yes | No |
| Rebooking or refund | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Arrival delay | Large carrier 2m+ passengers a year |
Small carrier everyone else |
|---|---|---|
| 3 to under 6 hours | CAD 400 | CAD 125 |
| 6 to under 9 hours | CAD 700 | CAD 250 |
| 9 hours or more | CAD 1,000 | CAD 500 |
| You take a refund instead of travelling | CAD 400 | CAD 125 |
The three-way control test, and why most disputes start here
APPR sorts every disruption into one of three buckets, and your entitlement changes with each one. This is the part travellers get wrong most often.
1. Within the airline’s control
Commercial decisions sit here: crew scheduling that fell apart, consolidating two half-empty flights into one, scheduled maintenance. This is the only bucket that pays cash. You also get standard of treatment, rebooking and a refund option.
2. Within the airline’s control but required for safety
A fault found during a pre-flight or post-flight check, or anything a safety rule obliges the airline to act on.
The airline still owes you food, drink, communication, an overnight hotel where relevant, and rebooking or a refund. It owes zero cash compensation.
Airlines lean on this category heavily, and the regulations narrow it: a problem discovered during scheduled maintenance does not qualify.
3. Outside the airline’s control
- Extreme weather
- security incidents
- medical emergencies
- air traffic control instructions
- government orders
- labour disruption within the airline itself or at an essential service provider such as an airport or an air navigation service provider
Here you get information, rebooking or a refund, and nothing else. Standard of treatment falls away too, so the airline is under no APPR duty to feed you or pay for a hotel.
The practical consequence: the reason code the airline gives you is the whole ball game. Ask for it in writing at the airport, screenshot the app notification, and keep the boarding pass.
Under the current rules the passenger who challenges a “safety” or “outside control” label has to argue it after the fact.
Large carrier or small carrier
A large carrier is one that has carried two million passengers or more worldwide in each of the two preceding calendar years. Everyone else is a small carrier.
The Canadian Transportation Agency publishes the current classification, and Air Canada (including Jazz and Rouge), WestJet, Air Transat, Sunwing, Porter Airlines and Flair Airlines are listed as large carriers.
That list still names Sunwing Airlines, which stopped flying on 28 May 2025 and now sits inside WestJet.
One rule catches people out.
When a small airline operates a flight on behalf of a large airline, under a codeshare or capacity purchase deal where you bought the ticket from the large airline, the large carrier amounts apply.
A regional turboprop leg sold to you by a major is treated as the major’s flight.
How the delay is measured
APPR measures the delay in your arrival at your final destination against the original scheduled arrival time. A departure that slips four hours but lands only two hours late pays nothing.
A missed connection that costs you an overnight can pay the top band even if the first flight was only slightly late.
Compare that with the distance-based structure in EU261 and UK261, where the sum is set by the distance of your flight and the size of the operating carrier is irrelevant.
Standard of treatment during a delay
Where the disruption is within the airline’s control, including the safety-required cases, and the airline told you less than 12 hours before scheduled departure, the standard of treatment kicks in once you have waited two hours past the original departure time.
Free of charge, the airline must provide food and drink in reasonable quantities given the length of the wait, the time of day and where you are, plus access to a means of communication.
If the delay pushes you into an overnight, the airline must offer hotel or comparable accommodation and transport to and from it.
Nothing in APPR sets a dollar cap on treatment, and nothing obliges the airline to reimburse a hotel you booked yourself without asking. Request the accommodation at the desk before you book independently.
If you are stuck overnight in Toronto or Vancouver and the airline declines, keep the receipts and the refusal.
Rebooking obligations
For anything within the airline’s control, including safety cases, a large carrier must:
- get you a confirmed seat on its own next available flight, or one operated by a carrier it has a commercial agreement with, departing within nine hours of your original departure time
- if it cannot, book you on any carrier’s flight departing from the same airport within 48 hours
- if that fails too, arrange transport to another airport and a flight from there
Small carriers only have to rebook you on their own or a partner’s next available flight.
Where the cause was outside the airline’s control, the obligation loosens to a confirmed reservation on the airline’s own or a partner’s next available flight departing within 48 hours.
If it cannot meet that, you can choose a refund or the alternate arrangement.
Alternate travel has to be comparable to what you bought. If the only seat available is in a higher class, you pay nothing extra. If it is a lower class, you are owed the difference back.
Refunds
You can take a refund when the rebooking on offer no longer serves your travel purpose. Refunds go back to the original payment method within 30 days, unless you agree in writing to something else.
Airlines may only push a voucher on you if it is worth more than the cash owed, never expires, and you confirm acceptance in writing. Cash, cheque, bank draft and electronic transfer are the acceptable forms of monetary compensation.
Carrier-specific process detail sits in our guides to Air Canada cancellations, Porter Airlines cancellations and Air Transat cancellations.
Baggage: lost, damaged and delayed
APPR applies Montreal Convention liability limits to domestic Canadian flights as well as international ones. For travel on or after 28 December 2024 the ceiling is 1,519 Special Drawing Rights, roughly CAD 2,780.
Flights before that date sit at 1,288 SDR, roughly CAD 2,350. The airline must also refund any baggage fee you paid when a bag is lost or damaged.
Deadlines are tight and separate from the one-year delay window:
- Damaged baggage: claim within 7 days of receiving the bag.
- Delayed baggage, international: claim within 21 days of receiving the bag.
- Delayed baggage, domestic: as soon as possible, within the limit in the airline’s tariff.
- Lost baggage: a bag not returned within 21 days is treated as lost. Claim as soon as possible.
Tarmac delays
If you are held on the aircraft on the tarmac at an airport in Canada, the airline must give you an opportunity to disembark once three hours have passed after the doors closed for departure, or after landing.
It can keep you on board past three hours only where take-off is likely within three hours and 45 minutes and it can continue to provide the required services.
Throughout a tarmac delay the airline must supply working lavatories, proper ventilation and heating or cooling, food and drink in reasonable quantities, and a means of communication where feasible.
How to claim: the airline first, then the CTA
- Write to the airline. Email or the airline’s claim form. Include your booking reference, flight number, scheduled and actual arrival times, the amount you are claiming and the delay band it falls in.
- You have one year from the date of the delay or cancellation to file a compensation request with the airline.
- The airline has 30 days to respond, either paying or explaining why it says nothing is owed.
- Escalate to the Canadian Transportation Agency if the answer is unsatisfactory or 30 days pass with no reply. You must show proof you contacted the airline in writing first, so keep the screenshots.
Be realistic about the CTA route. The Agency received 46,980 air travel complaints in 2024 to 2025 and closed 33,691, and its Chair reported an inventory of 84,398 complaints waiting to be processed as at 31 March 2025.
Transport Canada put the backlog at more than 97,000 complaints on 1 May 2026.
Once a complaint resolution officer actually starts your file, the process is capped at 90 days and the officer’s decision is binding. The queue before that start date is where the years go.
Nothing stops you pursuing the claim yourself in small claims court instead, and no APPR rule requires you to pay anyone a percentage of your payout to file a claim on your behalf.
What is changing, and what has not
Parliament amended the Canada Transportation Act in June 2023 to rebuild the framework, and the CTA pre-published draft Regulations Amending the Air Passenger Protection Regulations in the Canada Gazette, Part I on 21 December 2024, with comments closing in March 2025.
The draft would:
- scrap the three-way control test
- make compensation payable for any delay of three hours or more unless the airline proves one of an exhaustive list of exceptional circumstances
- shift the burden of proof onto the airline
- tighten refunds to 15 days from 30
- require a refund when a passenger cancels because the Government of Canada issues or upgrades a travel advisory to avoid all travel or avoid all non-essential travel
The government moved again on 1 May 2026. In the Spring Economic Update, Transport Canada said it would:
- clear the complaint backlog by handing cases to a neutral third-party dispute resolution organisation
- remove the requirement that passengers keep complaint outcomes confidential
- raise penalties for systemic breaches of the APPR to as much as CAD 1 million
Legislation was promised in the following weeks, with consultations to follow.
None of that is law today. The consolidated Air Passenger Protection Regulations on the Justice Laws website are still the 2019 regulations, last amended on 8 September 2022.
Until the amendments are registered and brought into force in the Canada Gazette, Part II, the three-category regime and the amounts in the matrix above are what govern your flight.
Where this sits in the wider picture
Canada is one of five regimes worth knowing if you fly internationally. Our flight delay compensation hub compares them side by side, and the country pages cover EU261, UK261, the United States and India’s DGCA rules.
The gap between them is wide: a nine-hour delay on a large Canadian carrier pays CAD 1,000, while the same delay on a domestic US itinerary carries no statutory cash entitlement at all.
FAQ
Does APPR apply to foreign airlines flying to Canada?
Yes. The regulations cover all flights to, from and within Canada, including connecting flights, regardless of where the airline is based.
Can I claim under both APPR and EU261 for the same flight?
A flight can fall under more than one regime, for example a departure from an EU airport to Canada. You claim under one, and you cannot collect the same compensation twice. Compare the amounts first: for a long-haul flight, EU261 or UK261 may pay more than the small carrier band, while a large Canadian carrier’s CAD 1,000 can beat both.
Is weather always outside the airline’s control?
Extreme weather is treated as outside the airline’s control. The knock-on effects are where it gets argued: an aircraft out of position hours later, or crew out of legal duty hours, may or may not still trace back to the original weather event. Get the reason code in writing.
What if the airline just ignores me?
Silence past the 30-day mark is grounds to take the complaint to the CTA. Keep the proof that you wrote to the airline, because the CTA will ask for it.
Do I get compensation if my delay was under three hours?
No cash. Standard of treatment can still apply if the disruption was within the airline’s control and you were told less than 12 hours ahead, and rebooking obligations start at a three-hour delay.
Does APPR cover missed connections and seat bumping on a partner airline?
Yes, provided the itinerary touches Canada. Denied boarding pays on the higher CAD 900, CAD 1,800 and CAD 2,400 scale, and that scale does not change with carrier size.
Sources
- Justice Laws Website: Air Passenger Protection Regulations (SOR/2019-150)
- Canadian Transportation Agency: Air Passenger Protection Regulations Highlights
- Canadian Transportation Agency: Flight Delays and Cancellations: A Guide
- Canadian Transportation Agency: Flight delays and cancellations: rebooking, refunds and compensation
- Canadian Transportation Agency: Large and small airlines
- Canadian Transportation Agency: Compensation for lost, damaged and delayed baggage
- Canadian Transportation Agency: Air travel complaints
- Canadian Transportation Agency: Air travel complaints resolution process
- Canadian Transportation Agency: Annual Report 2024 to 2025
- Canadian Transportation Agency: Limits of liability for passengers and goods
- Canada Gazette: Regulations Amending the Air Passenger Protection Regulations, Part I, 21 December 2024
- Transport Canada: Plan to clear the backlog of air travel complaints, 1 May 2026
Accurate as of 31 July 2026. This article is general information. Your entitlement depends on the specific circumstances of your disruption, including the reason the airline gives and the classification of the operating carrier. The airline and the Canadian Transportation Agency are the final authority on any individual claim.
