If you filed a CTA complaint today, when would it resolve?
The Canadian Transportation Agency’s complaint process is free — and carrying a backlog that passed 97,000 complaints, with end-to-end resolution reported at an average of 987 days. Applied to today, that looks like this:
Filed August 4, 2026 · reported average 987 days (~2.7 years)
April 17, 2029
The estimated resolution date for a complaint joining the queue today, at the published average pace. Not a prediction for any specific file — the arithmetic of a reported average.
The math, transparently
- Backlog: 97,000+ complaints (Transport Minister, May 2026).
- New complaints: over 1,000 per week through 2026 (CTA figures).
- Average time from filing to resolution: 987 days, per a February 2026 analysis of CTA data. Some resolve faster once review begins; the queue is the wait.
- Reform is coming — legislation now before Parliament would hand complaints to a carrier-funded third-party resolver — but the queue above is the system as it stands.
The alternative measured in months, not years
Small claims court: filing fees of $50–$200 (recoverable if you win), informal hearings built for self-represented people, and airlines that routinely settle before a hearing date because defending a $700 claim costs more than $700. The honest comparison of both lanes is here — including the one rule that matters: never run both at once.
Either way, the first step is the same: check what your flight was actually worth.