Flight cancellations, delays and long lineups have 53 percent of Canadian respondents concerned about airport travel, according to a new poll by Leger, which asked people on both sides of the border about issues including travel plans, airport delays, and inflation.
In Canada, 43% said they’re not concerned about airport issues and only 3% said they were unaware of the problems.
A similarly small proportion, 4%, said they weren’t aware of long lineups and delays in getting passports – likely evidence of how prominent both issues have been in the news in recent months.
Despite the many news stories about passport delays, less than half of Canadians polled said they were concerned about the issue, while 50% said it’s not concerning.
“I think to be really sort of seized by that issue, you have to either have a trip coming up and probably also need to be looking at your passport expiration date,” said Leger vice-president Andrew Enns.
More than half of Canadians who took the survey said they plan to travel within their own province, and another 28% said they will travel within Canada. Just over a quarter said they’ll be heading abroad, with 16% of travellers going to the US.
American respondents weren’t asked about the passport issue, but 45% of them said they were concerned about travel issues. Another 13% said they weren’t aware of the problem. Just 18% said that’s caused them to significantly change their vacation plans. People under 35 were more likely to say they’re changing their plans, and also more likely to be planning to travel overseas.
There seems to be general agreement about what the problem is, with 68% of Canadians and 54% of Americans saying they think staffing shortages are to blame.
But 38% of American respondents say it’s the airlines that are short-handed, while 43% of Canadians think it’s the airports themselves.
A similar proportion – 18% in Canada and 17% in the US – laid the blame on government COVID-19 restrictions.
People from the Prairies were more likely to believe the pandemic rules are the problem, and those from Atlantic Canada and Quebec were more likely to blame airports.
Recession
Meanwhile, most Canadians believe the country is in a recession – never helpful to the travel industry – and that prices are going to continue to rise for the foreseeable future.
More than 80% of Canadian respondents said they believe prices will keep going up, and 59% say they think Canada is in an economic recession.
“Between that and the rising inflation and the tightening of household budgets, that probably is not going to be something that’s going to encourage much consumer spending,” said Enns.
The outlook was similarly bleak south of the border, where 64% said the US is in a recession, while 19% said they didn’t know. But only 66% of Americans feel prices will continue going up, and 16% said things are starting to get better.
The online survey was completed by 1,538 Canadians and 1,002 Americans between July 8 and 10. It cannot be assigned a margin of error because online polls are not considered truly random samples.