By now, Canadian travelers have come to expect a certain baseline of disappointment when booking with our two biggest airlines. The newly released J.D. Power 2025 North America Airline Satisfaction Study confirms what most of us already know from personal experience: Air Canada and WestJet continue to lag behind their North American peers in customer satisfaction.
Yes, there have been some improvements—Air Canada climbed a rung or two in the economy and business class categories—but let’s not pop the champagne just yet. These are modest gains that still leave both airlines near the bottom of the rankings. WestJet, in particular, saw its customer satisfaction scores dip in both economy and premium economy, placing last in one category and second-to-last in another. So much for moving in the right direction.
It’s not just about legroom or bad snacks. According to the survey, passengers rated their experiences across a wide range of factors: staff helpfulness, digital tools, boarding efficiency, trust, and value for money. The message is loud and clear: Canadians are feeling shortchanged. As Gabor Lukacs, president of Air Passenger Rights, bluntly puts it, “That is indicative of some significant problems in how these airlines handle passengers.”
The most frustrating part? This isn’t about Canada lacking the capacity to do better. Canadians are famously friendly and polite—the very qualities that should shine in customer service. JD Power’s Michael Taylor even suggested that both airlines could improve their rankings simply by better leveraging their people skills. And yet, that potential remains largely untapped.
It’s not as if these airlines are struggling to attract flyers. With a booming summer travel season on the horizon and many Canadians choosing domestic destinations over U.S. travel, demand is there. What’s missing is the will to make flying feel less like a chore and more like a service worth paying for.
We can’t ignore corporate behavior here either. WestJet’s 2019 decision to go private under Onex Corporation hasn’t exactly translated into a more customer-focused operation. If anything, service seems to have slipped further, shielded from shareholder scrutiny and public accountability.
So what can passengers do? According to Lukacs, it’s time to stop being so “understanding.” Canadians are often too quick to forgive and too slow to demand better. Lukacs encourages disgruntled passengers to take their grievances to small claims court where appropriate—a tactic that has, in some cases, led to real compensation and change.
At the end of the day, airlines won’t fix what they think they can get away with. If Air Canada and WestJet want to climb out of the basement of customer satisfaction rankings, they need to start treating passengers less like problems to manage and more like people they’re privileged to serve. Until then, we’ll be buckling up not just for turbulence in the air—but for frustration on the ground.
