Konrad Yakabuski , The Globe and Mail

Rule No. 1 in the airline industry seems to be: If it’s your fault, prepare to pay; if it’s the airline’s fault, don’t expect contrition, much less reasonable compensation, unless you publicly embarrass the carrier.

Canadians suck it up. Most of us are too nice or too busy to lodge official complaints, well aware of the black hole where our grievances usually end up. Just 554 airline customers formally complained to the Canadian Transportation Agency in 2012-13, which is a rounding error amid the millions of flights we take every year. But that’s not hard to understand. Who but a masochist with time to kill would want to endlessly relive a horrible flight experience during a bureaucrat-driven complaint adjudication process?