TORONTO — Passengers who were stranded by the demise of SkyGreece Airlines may get some idea today about how quickly a federal agency will deal with a complaint on their behalf.
The Canadian Transportation Agency is giving the airline until 5 p.m. eastern time to respond to a complaint filed by passenger rights advocate Gabor Lukacs.
Lukacs has called for the agency to order the airline to rebook its stranded passengers on other airlines within 24 hours and put up $8.7 million of security to cover passenger claims.
He's asked for an expedited process to handle the complaint and the agency has given SkyGreece until 5 p.m. today to respond — if it doesn't the expedited process will go ahead.
Some passengers have already returned to Canada, including Peter Fatiou and his son Stavros who went to Greece for a family wedding and then had to pay their own way home to Toronto on Sunday.
"It's frustrating, it's nerve wracking and it's five and a half thousand dollars later," Stavros Fatiou told CTV News.
SkyGreece said last week that the flight disruption was due to technical issues and financial setbacks resulting from the Greek economic crisis, but didn't elaborate.
The airline called the flight cancellations a temporary situation and said its operations were expected to resume soon.
The airline was founded in 2012 and started operations in 2014 with one plane, which is now parked at Toronto's Pearson International Airport.
SkyGreece is headquartered in Athens, Greece, but in his application to the Canadian Transportation Agency, Lukacs said the company is registered as a Quebec corporation and owned or controlled by Canadians.
