DECODING CHAOS — Today's marathon House transport committee meetings could feel like a lazy weekend at a music festival: It will feature openers who serve up tepid levels of excitement, before the highly anticipated headliner appears, under pressure to deliver a show-stealing performance that lives up to the hype. MPs will spend much of their working hours interrogating the main culprits behind holiday travel chaos that marooned Canadians in various and sundry locales. They'll also grill department officials and OMAR ALGHABRA, the transport minister who has repeatedly expressed disappointment in some of the witnesses who will appear ahead of him at the committee — and pledged to improve passenger protections. — What the opposition wants: Aside from sound bites about justice for paying customers? The government's feisty foes will extract all the material they need from airlines and airports to pressure Alghabra for tangible, permanent, legislative and regulatory fixes that hold corporations accountable when they fall flat on their faces and leave customers high and dry. — The first act: At 10:30, the airlines take the hot seat. Air Canada's VP of systems operations control, KEVIN O'CONNOR, will join by videoconference alongside DAVID RHEAULT, VP of government and community relations. WestJet VP external affairs ANDREW GIBBONS will be in the room. Beside him will be SCOTT WILSON , VP of flight operations; and JARED MIKOCH-GERKE, director of government relations and regulatory affairs. They'll be joined IRL by LEN CORRADO, president of Sunwing Airlines, who will face the music beside colleague ANDREW DAWSON, president of tour operations at Sunwing Travel Group. (In the festival analogy, these are the headline-making show-stealers.) — The second act: At noon, three major airport authorities take their turn for 90 minutes. The panel includes Aéroports de Montréal CEO PHILIPPE RAINVILLE and VP public affairs MARTIN MASSÉ. Greater Toronto Airports Authority president and CEO DEBORAH FLINT will join by video link, as will Vancouver Airport Authority president and CEO TAMARA VROOMAN. The airport execs might not get a grilling for December snafus, but expect Tory MP MARK STRAHL to rope them into a larger conversation about travel woes. Strahl could attempt to revive last summer's toxic mix of lengthy delays, canceled flights, and interminably long security lines that spelled misery at the nation's largest airports. — Not on the docket (yet): Via Rail, passenger rights' groups. They'll have to wait. THE HEADLINER — Having spent three hours gathering ammo, MPs will take an hour-long break to eat lunch and collect their thoughts before Alghabra enters the room at 2:30. He'll stay an hour. The minister will bring an entourage of senior bureaucrats from Transport Canada. The Canadian Transportation Agency is (virtually) sending chair and CEO FRANCE PÉGEOT, alongside TOM OOMMEN, director general of the Analysis and Outreach Branch. IN SEARCH OF SOLUTIONS — Alghabra's post-holiday media tour offered strong hints of what he'll tell committee members today. Last Saturday, the minister told CBC's The House that airlines should shoulder more responsibility for compensation before complaints are filed. "Currently, it feels to many passengers that the burden is on them," he told host CATHERINE CULLEN. "We want to make sure we put rules in place to ensure that the burden is on the airline." On last week's CBC "At Issue" pod, the Toronto Star's well-sourced ALTHIA RAJ previewed "five or six" specific measures coming this winter. Per Raj's reporting, those include: → More powers for Canadian Transportation Authority staff to resolve routine complaints. Currently, only the eight members of the CTA board of directors can adjudicate complaints — which helps explain why the backlog sits in the tens of thousands. → Airlines would shoulder more of the costs associated with adjudication of complaints. → More money infused into the CTA's operations — The rebuttal: On the pod, Globe and Mail columnist ANDREW COYNE dismissed the Air Passenger Protection Regulations meant to protect consumers as a "complete waste of time." What Canada really needs is more foreign competition in Canadian skies — an opinion shared by KORY TENEYCKE on the Curse of Politics.
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