Canada Air Passenger Rights (APPR): Your Compensation Guide

Canada’s Air Passenger Protection Regulations (APPR) set minimum standards for flights to, from and within Canada. If your flight is delayed or cancelled for a reason within the airline’s control and not required for safety, you can claim up to $1,000 in compensation, and up to $2,400 if you’re involuntarily bumped.

This guide explains who is covered, how the three disruption categories work, the compensation amounts, your rights to rebooking, care and baggage, and how to file a claim. It reflects the rules as of November 2026; verify current details with the Canadian Transportation Agency before you file.

This is general information, not legal advice.

Key takeaways

• The APPR apply to all flights to, from and within Canada, including foreign airlines.
• What you’re owed depends on whether the disruption was within the airline’s control, within its control but required for safety, or outside its control.
• Compensation for delays and cancellations is based on how late you arrive at your final destination.
• You have one year to claim in writing, and the airline has 30 days to respond.
• If the airline says no or doesn’t answer, you can file a free complaint with the CTA, though wait times have been long.

Who and what the APPR cover

The rules apply to any flight to, from or within Canada, including connecting flights, whether the airline is Canadian or foreign. Flights entirely outside Canada, such as a US domestic flight from a border airport, aren’t covered, which is worth knowing if you’re thinking of flying from US border airports.

The regulations distinguish between large and small airlines. A large airline has carried at least two million passengers worldwide in each of the two preceding calendar years; anything below that counts as small. Air Canada and WestJet are large carriers. If you’re unsure about another airline, its tariff or the CTA can clarify.

The three categories that decide what you get

Every delay or cancellation falls into one of three buckets, and the airline must tell you which one applies.

1. Within the airline’s control. Examples include crew scheduling problems, overbooking and many routine maintenance issues. You’re entitled to rebooking or a refund, care while you wait and compensation for inconvenience.
2. Within the airline’s control but required for safety. Examples include mechanical problems found outside scheduled maintenance that must be fixed before flying. You get rebooking or a refund and care, but no compensation for inconvenience.
3. Outside the airline’s control. Examples include weather, air traffic control restrictions, security threats and airport operational issues. You’re entitled to information and rebooking, or a refund if the airline can’t rebook you within 48 hours, but not compensation or meals.

Heads up: Airlines sometimes classify mechanical issues as safety-related, which removes compensation. The CTA has found in a number of cases that disruptions linked to maintenance were within the airline’s control. If the explanation seems vague, ask for specifics in writing.

Compensation amounts

These are the minimum amounts under the APPR as of November 2026, in Canadian dollars. Delay compensation is based on your arrival time at the final destination on your ticket.

Situation	Arrival delay at destination	Large airline	Small airline
Delay or cancellation (within control, not safety)	3 to under 6 hours	$400	$125
Delay or cancellation (within control, not safety)	6 to under 9 hours	$700	$250
Delay or cancellation (within control, not safety)	9 hours or more	$1,000	$500
Cancellation or delay where you take a refund instead	Not applicable	$400	$125
Involuntary denied boarding (within control)	Under 6 hours	$900	$900
Involuntary denied boarding (within control)	6 to under 9 hours	$1,800	$1,800
Involuntary denied boarding (within control)	9 hours or more	$2,400	$2,400

Airlines must offer compensation in money, though they may also offer vouchers or other benefits. If you accept an alternative, it must be worth more than the cash amount and you should confirm in writing that you understand you’re giving up cash. Our flight delay compensation calculator estimates what you might be owed.

Rebooking and refunds

For disruptions within the airline’s control, including safety-related ones, the airline must rebook you on its next available flight or a partner’s. A large airline that can’t get you on a flight departing within nine hours of your original departure must look further, including flights on other airlines. If the new itinerary no longer serves the purpose of your trip, you can take a refund instead.

For disruptions outside the airline’s control, it must rebook you on its own or a partner’s next available flight. If it can’t offer a flight departing within 48 hours of your original departure time, you can choose a refund for the unused portion of your ticket.

Care while you wait

When a disruption is within the airline’s control, including safety-related ones, you were told about it less than 12 hours before departure, and you’ve waited two hours past your original departure time, the airline must provide food and drink in reasonable quantities and access to a means of communication. If you have to wait overnight, it must provide hotel accommodation and transportation to and from the hotel, free of charge. These obligations don’t apply to disruptions outside the airline’s control.

The airline must also keep you informed, with status updates roughly every 30 minutes until a new departure time is set.

Denied boarding

Before bumping anyone involuntarily, the airline must ask for volunteers and agree on any benefits with them in writing. If you’re denied boarding for a reason within the airline’s control, compensation is owed as soon as it’s operationally feasible, generally within 48 hours, and the airline must give you written confirmation of the amount if it can’t pay before your new departure.

Tarmac delays

If your aircraft is stuck on the tarmac, the airline must provide working washrooms, proper ventilation and heating or cooling, food and drink, and a way to communicate with people outside the aircraft. After three hours, it must generally let passengers get off the plane, unless take-off is imminent; the regulations allow a short extension of up to about 45 minutes in that case.

Lost, damaged and delayed baggage

Baggage liability follows the Montreal Convention on international trips, and the APPR apply comparable limits to domestic flights. The airline’s liability limit is 1,519 Special Drawing Rights per passenger, which works out to roughly $2,800 to $2,900 at recent exchange rates. You’ll need to prove the value of what you lost. If your bag is lost or damaged, the airline must also refund any baggage fee you paid.

Deadlines are short: file a written claim within 7 days of receiving a damaged bag, and within 21 days of receiving a delayed one. Keep receipts for essentials you buy while waiting.

Pro tip: File a report at the airport baggage desk before you leave, take photos of damaged bags and keep your bag tags. Missing paperwork is a common reason claims stall.

How to claim compensation

1. At the airport, ask the airline for the reason for the disruption and its category, ideally in writing or on the app.
2. Collect evidence: boarding passes, booking confirmation, screenshots of notifications and your actual arrival time.
3. Submit a written claim to the airline that operated the disrupted flight within one year. Most airlines have an online form.
4. Wait up to 30 days for the airline to pay or explain why it believes it doesn’t owe compensation.
5. Escalate if needed by filing a complaint with the CTA through its online form. It’s free, but the Agency has faced a backlog of tens of thousands of complaints, so expect a long wait.
6. Consider alternatives, such as small claims court or a provincial tribunal, which some passengers find faster. Claim-help companies exist too, but they keep a share of any payout.

The Air Passenger Protection site has plain-language summaries of the rules and links to the complaint form.

What’s changing in 2026

The rules have been under review for years. Parliament passed amendments in 2023 aimed at making compensation the default for most disruptions, and draft regulations followed in late 2024, but those were never finalized. In September 2026, federal officials indicated that the broader overhaul was no longer moving forward.

Instead, legislation introduced in spring 2026 proposed changing how complaints are resolved, including allowing third-party organizations to handle complaints, moving passenger-rights rule-making from the CTA to the Minister of Transport and raising maximum penalties for systemic violations. When we last checked, it was still before Parliament and the compensation amounts above had not changed. Check the CTA’s website before you file, since procedures may shift.

Example: Your Toronto to Calgary flight on a large airline is cancelled because of a crew shortage, and you arrive seven hours late. That’s within the airline’s control and not safety-related, so you’d claim $700, plus meals and, if needed, a hotel while you waited.

Disruptions are one reason to book with a credit card that includes travel insurance, and our travel insurance guide for Canadians covers what the APPR don’t. To find cheaper fares in the first place, get CheapFly’s free deal alerts.

Bottom line

The APPR give Canadian travellers real rights, but you usually have to ask for them. Find out the reason for any disruption, keep your records, claim in writing within a year and escalate if the airline won’t pay. Rules can change, so confirm the latest details with the CTA before you file.