The federal government says it will quadruple the maximum fine that can be levied against airlines for repeated violations of the air passenger bill of rights from $250,000 to $1 million.

Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon made the announcement during a news conference on Friday.

The regulations, formally known as the air passenger protection regulations (APPR), came into force in 2019 and require airlines to compensate passengers for delays or cancellations that are within their control.

Airlines found to repeatedly violate those regulations could initially only be hit with a maximum $25,000 fine. That penalty was later boosted to $250,000 as part of a sweep of changes to the regime introduced in the 2023 budget.

The Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) — a quasi-judicial tribunal and regulator tasked with settling disputes between airlines and customers — has been dealing with a backlog of air passenger complaints since the air passenger bill of rights was introduced in 2019.

The agency told CBC News last month that the backlog had hit 95,000 complaints.

As part of Tuesday’s economic update, the Liberals announced that it plans to outsource the resolution process for air passenger complaints to “a neutral, third-party dispute resolution organisation.”

The government hasn’t yet indicated what sort of third-party adjudicator would be brought on to help relieve the complaints backlog, but it pointed to the U.K. and EU systems as models to follow.

Air Canada announced earlier this month that it would pilot a program that would transfer air passenger complaints to a third party.

The government had promised in the 2023 budget to update the regulations in order to simplify the process and make it easier for passengers to understand.

“We put in place a system that in hindsight was onerous, expensive, took too long…. We are going to change that system,” MacKinnon said on Friday. “If you are one of the 100,000 or so people involved in this backlog, help is on the way.”

The CTA proposed a new set of regulations in late 2024 and wrapped up consultations on those proposals in March 2025. Those proposed regulations still haven’t been brought into force.