The Globe and Mail reports in its Wednesday edition that Air Canada is trying out a new way to resolve claims for compensation filed by unhappy passengers by using third party arbitrators, a test project intended to avoid long waits for decisions from the Canadian Transportation Agency. The Globe's Eric Atkins writes that the airline will ask 500 randomly selected Air Canada customers with outstanding CTA complaints to transfer their cases to an arbitrator, who will provide a ruling in 90 days. Passengers can accept the decisions and drop their cases at the CTA, or continue to press their complaints with the regulator, which has a backlog of 96,000 complaints. It can take three years and sometimes more for the CTA to settle a complaint. The airline will abide by the arbitrator's rulings, Marc Barbeau, Air Canada's chief legal officer, told The Globe. The pilot project is an attempt to reduce the delays the airline and customers face waiting for decisions from the regulator. "We have relationships with our customers and sometimes we let them down, and sometimes they feel we've let them down," Mr. Barbeau said. Air Canada said it is subject to about 16,000 CTA complaints a year, and wins about 75 per cent of them.