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Canada to unveil legislation to address overbooked flights

Click to play video: 'United investigates after passenger dragged off overbooked flight'
United investigates after passenger dragged off overbooked flight
United Airlines says it is launching an internal investigation after a 69-year-old man was forcibly removed from an oversold flight. As Jackson Proskow reports, the man had refused to give up his seat for a United employee – Apr 10, 2017

Canada will introduce new legislation this spring that will address the problem of travellers being bumped from flights.

Yesterday’s announcement came during a social media frenzy over a man being dragged off a United Airlines flight in Chicago because he refused to be bumped.

The man is seen in a video screaming as passengers question why he is being treated like that.

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A spokesman for Transport Minister Marc Garneau says bumping rules will be included in an air passenger bill of rights that was promised last fall.

READ MORE: United Airlines passenger dragged off overbooked flight after refusing to give up seat

It is aimed at crafting clear, minimum requirements for compensation when flights are oversold or luggage lost.

Marc Roy declined, however, to say if the legislation would set industry-wide standards or raise compensation to levels offered in the United States or Europe.

A WestJet flight and an Air Canada flight cross paths on a runway at Toronto's Lester B. Pearson airport as photographed from an airplane on Aug. 28, 2012.
A WestJet flight and an Air Canada flight cross paths on a runway at Toronto\’s Lester B. Pearson airport as photographed from an airplane on Aug. 28, 2012. Bruce Bennett/Getty Images

Garneau would not comment directly on the incident aboard a United Airlines flight Sunday.

Passenger rights advocate Gabor Lukacs said the “troubling” video highlights the need for greater consumer protection.

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