In a bid to derail a private member's bill focused on the rights of air travellers, Canada's largest airlines are proposing their own bill of rights for passengers.

Air Canada, Air Transat, Jazz Air LP and WestJet submitted tariffs -- the terms and conditions a passenger must abide by when they buy a ticket -- to the Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) on April 24.

The airlines, through the National Airlines Council of Canada (NACC), made the submission as part of a bid to convince MPs to kill Bill C-310, a private member's bill put forth by Manitoba NDP MP Jim Maloway.

Maloway's bill proposes that passengers kept on a plane for longer than one hour should receive compensation at a rate of $500 per hour.

The bill also calls for airlines to pay $1,200 to a passenger if they are bumped from a flight longer than 3,500 kilometres.

NACC President George Petsikas said the airlines have submitted their own rules because the private member's bill was too focused on punitive measures.

"We're offering what we believe is a fair and balanced package of new consumer rights, enforceable by law," he told CTV's Power Play on Monday.

Petsikas said the private member's bill is a "very imbalanced approach" based on fines and punishment.

He added that the legislation fails to take into account situations like severe weather, in which the airlines have no control.

Petsikas said the airlines have now gone above and beyond what is needed to protect consumers, and he added that the commitments will be enforced by law almost immediately across the country.

The carriers will likely adopt the measures internationally by the first week of June, he said.

But Maloway said the airlines haven't gone far enough to protect passengers, and he called the airline's rules a "tactical" move.

Maloway noted that his private member's bill is based on effective, European legislation in effect since 1991. Four years ago, European lawmakers strengthened the rules to include tour operators, he added.

Maloway's bill includes many of the same measures -- some of which protect airlines as well.

"It's there in black and white," he told CTV's Power Play. "We are not going to force them to fly in bad weather."

In September of last year, the federal government asked the airlines to voluntarily agree not to keep passengers in an airplane on the tarmac for longer 90 minutes.

However, only three months after those federal guidelines were issued, some passengers had spent several hours on the tarmac awaiting takeoff, Maloway said.

"So we see they don't even follow their own voluntary agreements."

CTA spokesman Marc Comeau said the tariffs put forth by the four airlines closely resemble the guidelines the Tories put out last September titled "Flight Rights Canada."

However, the "Flight Rights Canada" initiative was not legally binding.

The newly proposed tariffs would be legally binding once the airlines put them into their terms and conditions.

First, the CTA must approve the international tariffs within the next 45 days. The CTA does not have approval authority over the domestic tariffs but can enforce them.

After the tariffs are adopted by the airlines, Comeau told CTV.ca that a traveller "can make a complaint to the agency" if they feel that the airline has not abided by its tariffs.

"It's a commitment that they (the airlines) are making on behalf of themselves but they do have to abide by it," Comeau said from Ottawa.