OTTAWA—Air Canada pushed back at its critics on social media Wednesday who complained the company gouged RCMP and other law enforcement officers flying to the Moncton funerals of three slain Mounties.

The airline says it offered a 30 per cent discount on commercial fares to the RCMP to distribute to its people travelling to the funeral, added an extra Toronto-Moncton commercial flight to increase capacity, and put on two free charter flights from Toronto and Ottawa to Moncton.

The service costs of those charters were donated by employees and the fuel cost donated by “a partner,” says Air Canada, which at first said it was reluctant to shift focus off the Moncton tragedy but was facing inaccurate information spreading online.

One commenter posted on the Toronto Star’s Facebook page that the airline charged “$725 one-way” in contrast to lower fares of $195-$295 later in the week, but “could have flown those officers for free and never come close to affecting their bottom line. . . . This is a disgrace. . . . Shame on Air Canada.”

Peter Fitzpatrick, a spokesman for the airline, told the Star in an interview Wednesday there was a range of low fares from $295 and up available to officers travelling to Moncton. He said the fares compared favourably to Air Canada’s competitors, adding a bus costs $185 from Moncton to Toronto. The airline’s flights, even before the Moncton funerals, were already booked at record high rates of 80 per cent, he said.

It was not immediately clear how many officers used the 30 per cent discount.

Tuesday’s regimental funerals drew thousands of officers — including about 1,300 Mounties — from across Canada and the U.S. to Moncton.

On Tuesday, Fitzpatrick said, Air Canada operated two charter flights with Airbus A319 aircraft (which seat up to 156 passengers) from Toronto and Ottawa to Moncton, N.B. “to accommodate law enforcement officers travelling to pay their respects to their colleagues who recently lost their lives in the line of duty.”

“Air Canada employees associated with these charters, both from the operation and behind the scenes, volunteered their support while our industry partners including the associated airport authorities, our caterer and Nav Canada waived their fees and costs associated with these special flights to be able to offer the RCMP transportation at no cost.”

“In addition to the two charter flights, we added an extra scheduled flight to Moncton, and we facilitated commercial travel arrangements for additional law enforcement personnel travelling by making lower fares available to them for last minute travel to Moncton and nearby airports in New Brunswick.”

WestJet spokesman Robert Palmer said WestJet has a standing policy for civic or regimental funerals like the one on Tuesday: “Any peace officer can call our call centre to receive a discount off the lowest available fare.”

WestJet has capacity to carry 272 passengers into Moncton via two flights daily, one from Hamilton and one from Toronto. He said the airline did not add any flights but its flights on the days before and after the funerals “were pretty full.”

Palmer had seen the social media comments about gouging and defended Air Canada, saying “nothing could be further from the truth,” he said in an email to the Star.

He suggested people may have wrongly assumed fares had been raised, when in fact “the less-expensive seats have already been purchased by other travellers and what they’re seeing is what’s left — the last few seats on a flight.”

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