Some 54 per cent of flights to the four largest airports were bumped off schedule in the seven days
More than 44 per cent of the 4,815 flights were delayed while 8.5 per cent were scrapped altogether.
Airlines and the federal government have been scrambling to respond to scenes of endless lines, flight disruptions, lost luggage and daily turmoil at airports — particularly at Pearson — a problem the aviation industry has blamed on a shortage of federal security and customs officers at the
“The airlines have lost some of their mojo," he said. “The government has reacted and has pumped up the resources, and we’ve still got chaos.”
Passengers and federally regulated transport workers are no longer required to be fully vaccinated to board a plane or train in
"That didn't really move the needle in any direction," he said in an interview. "Or maybe it did speed things up. But in the other direction, passengers also probably increased and so there's a net-zero effect."
Harris is among the thousands of Canadians to feel the frustration personally. He was slated to fly with his partner and three-year-old child to
"We just went for a drive to P.E.I. instead," he said.
"I said screw it, if I don't get a vacation, I'm building a (data) dashboard."
"It's a consequence of the delay in international flights," he said. "To delay a domestic flight is a lot easier because flying to major hubs in
Luggage is an especially sticky problem, with a shortage of baggage handlers to shuttle suitcases from late arrivals to connecting planes amid last-minute gate changes.
"It creates a bottleneck and congestion and to some extent it's a bit of a nightmare," Rainville said.
In
While passenger volumes remain below 2019 levels, at peak times they're on par. "We don’t have the personnel obviously for this. And we have all-new personnel as well that have just been freshly trained, and they've got to ramp up the learning curve, and that’s difficult," he said, adding that staff retention is another hurdle.
“There’s not enough of them. And if you get sick, then they get sick too," said
Kinks in one part of the air travel pipeline can snarl others, with overflowing customs areas stopping flight crews from disembarking, for example, or a lack of airline customer service agents exacerbating delays.
Flights held on the tarmac can leave crew out of "duty time" — the regulatory and contractual limits on hours worked — prompting personnel gaps. Agents tied up boarding passengers for a delayed flight can't cover check-in counters, leading to delays in a different part of the airport. Similar snags confront baggage handlers.
Passengers say they receive last-minute emails informing them of repeated delays, aircraft changes or rebookings scheduled days after the original departure time. Reasons cited run the gamut from absent pilots to unplanned mechanical maintenance.
This report by
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