Air Canada says it is making progress restoring customer service to pre-pandemic norms, with the airline’s CEO stating he is “very satisfied” in the reduction of delays, cancellations, and baggage mishandlings in recent weeks.

“Earlier this summer, I committed on behalf of everyone at Air Canada that we would do everything possible to restore our company’s industry leading standards of customer care,” said Michael Rousseau. “Among other things, this included innovation at the airport, operational changes, and significant schedule adjustments and today these are yielding demonstrable improvement in the metrics that matter most to our customers.

“While I am very satisfied with the progress to date, and I thank our employees for their unrelenting efforts, we all continue to work hard on behalf of our customers to complete our recovery,” he added.

The airline says that for the period June 27 to Aug. 14, during which it carried approximately 6.4 million customers, Air Canada, Rouge, and Air Canada Express, recorded the following operational improvements in customer service levels:

• Flight Delays – A 48% reduction or 1,160 fewer flights that took a delay longer than one hour. In addition, flight delays overall are getting shorter. For flights that experienced any delay, the average arrival delay during the week of June 27 was 28 minutes longer than the same week in 2019. As of the week of Aug. 8, this had improved to 12 minutes.

• Flight Cancellations – During the week of Aug. 8, there was a 77% reduction in the number of cancelled flights as compared to the week of June 27. This translates into 960 fewer flights cancelled. Furthermore, flight completion, which is the percentage of all scheduled flights that are not cancelled, reached 96.7% during the week of Aug. 8, which was less than one percentage point lower than the same week in 2019. The vast majority of customers experiencing cancellations, often due to weather or other unexpected factors, were able to travel within 24 hours.

• Baggage Handling – The strongest area of improvement over this period can be seen in baggage handling, where the airline handles over 650,000 bags per week. During the week of June 27, mishandling rates per 1,000 customers were approximately 2.5 times the same number in 2019. As of the week of Aug. 8, this rate has fully recovered to 2019 levels with a baggage handling success rate of 98%.

Each day on average, Air Canada currently operates nearly 1,100 flights and regularly carries 135,000 people. This summer the airline says it plans to operate 79% of its pre-pandemic capacity as the industry stabilizes and has recalled employees laid off during the pandemic and continues to hire additional workers. It currently has approximately 34,000 employees compared to 34,700 prior to the pandemic.

“At Air Canada, we know how much our customers value travel and their reliance on us to transport them safely, comfortably and without disruption. This is always our goal and we share with them their disappointment that, coming out of the pandemic, the global industry faltered due to the unprecedented challenges of restarting after a two-year, virtual shutdown,” said Rousseau.