Canadian airports are facing excessively long line-ups and flight cancellations despite the Trudeau government creating a task force of cabinet ministers to solve the problem.
As a result of the chaos at airports, Air Canada will be cutting hundreds of flights from their schedule in hopes they’ll be able to better accommodate travellers.
The airline will have to reduce its normal schedule of around 1,000 flights per day by an average of 154 flights per day for July and August in hopes fewer travellers will have their flights delayed or cancelled because of airport conditions.
Air Canada CEO said Michael Rousseau said “Regrettably, things are not business as usual in our industry globally, and this is affecting our operations and our ability to serve you with our normal standards of care.”
“The Covid-19 pandemic brought the world air transport system to a halt in early 2020. Now, after more than two years, global travel is resurgent, and people are returning to flying at a rate never seen in our industry.”
The terrible airport conditions have pressured the Trudeau government to act, as they paused the domestic vaccine mandate for domestic travel and created a committee of cabinet members to discuss the problem of delayed government services including airport delays.
Despite the creation of this cabinet committee, travelers are still facing long lines and flights being cancelled or delayed as flyers wait for their planes.
According to Datawazo, between Jun 23-29, 50% of domestic and international flight have either been delayed or cancelled.
Some of Canada’s most popular airports have been hit the worse – Ottawa international Airport is seeing 53% of flights cancelled or delayed, Calgary at 50%, Pearson International Airport at 63% and Montreal Trudeau international at 58%.
Travellers have expressed their anger with the state of Canada’s airports, taking their voices to social media.
Former NHL player Ryan Whitney blasted Pearson airport after having flights cancelled and waiting in multi-hour lines to fly from Toronto to Boston.
It is not only airports that are seeing major delays, Canadians have reported long lines and delays at passport offices and immigration processing offices.
Despite the committee of ten cabinet members being formed earlier this month, it is not clear that the committee has taken any measures to address the problems.
