From verbal abuse to physical threats and police calls, front-line workers in the airline industry are finding themselves on the receiving end of passenger frustrations over flight delays and lost baggage.
"I've had customers poke me in the chest and say, 'You're not going to get me off of this flight,'" said
"I've seen my colleagues in tears, walking away because they just can't deal with another person yelling at them today."
"It shakes you," said Robinson, who's worked at the airport for more than 24 years. "This is probably the worst I've ever seen."
The frayed nerves and exploding tempers are the outcome of an ongoing struggle by airports and carriers to cope with the massive travel rebound this summer.
It also comes as the union representing more than 700 WestJet employees at airports in
"We can all understand why they're angry and frustrated. Your flight gets cancelled and they tell you to call and you wait on hold for six hours — and I'm not exaggerating," said
"To some extent, our people are broken," she said from
"They're upset, they're often close to tears, they're exhausted. At all airlines they're being asked to work as many hours as they can possibly manage to work. And they feel helpless."
Dias added that police officers are being called to airport gates daily because of verbal harassment from travellers.
The fallout from the "sinkhole of a mess" deters new recruits and drags down retention rates, she said.
Dias is calling on management for a stronger security presence as well as higher wages to attract more workers, which would speed up passenger processing and make employees feel safer, she said.
The workers in
On Wednesday, those employees voted 98 per cent in support of a strike if they cannot reach an agreement with the airline, and could walk off the job as early as
“The pay scale has not been increased for more than five years, making WestJet’s wages among the lowest in the Canadian aviation industry and no match for soaring inflation,"
The union also highlighted a "pressure-cooker atmosphere," stating that workers have endured verbal abuse and physical threats from travellers whose flights were delayed or cancelled by the carrier.
WestJet executive vice-president
"We remain focused on successfully negotiating an agreement that provides value to our airport employees," she said in a statement.
"As the airline rebuilds, the majority of its airports employees have been with the company for less than one year, and the vast majority of more tenured airport employees have received increases through the existing pay step structure, in addition to a Canadian industry leading variable compensation."
Before taking any strike action,
At
"We continue to recruit for certain jobs and have and continue to refine elements of our compensation packages to remain competitive in the current environment," the company said in an email.
"Employees are professionals and they make every effort to manage challenging situations effectively in their respective environments. The overwhelming majority of passengers are respectful. That said,
Flight attendants and customs officers face their own passenger challenges as well.
"It's like a nine-to-five job that's now turned into a seven-day-a-week job with no fixed hours," said
"If you have kids, if you have a family, a partner, a dog, cats ... everything's kind of up in the air."
Frustration from long security queues, missed connecting flights, misplaced luggage and hours on tarmacs has pushed emotions to a "boiling point ... resulting in increased reports of harassment and abuse — physical and verbal," said
"This is very scary when you're 40,000 feet above ground."
Border security agents also face exasperation from passengers, at least 30 per cent of whom show up at land and air checkpoints without having completed their ArriveCan app, said
"We're seeing an uptick in verbal abuse. In many cases they're waiting in line two, three hours to get to us. We completely get why they're frustrated," he said.
The increase in automated kiosks to process international arrivals at some airports has not made up for staff cuts that helped reduce customs agents at
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