Canada’s transport minister says that airlines must take ownership of the travel turbulence playing out at airports across the country – a problem the aviation industry has blamed on a shortage of federal security and customs officers.
But Omar Alghabra says that “airlines have a duty as well,” and must “keep their end of the bargain” on flight cancellations and missing baggage.
“We’re hearing some stories about luggage issues and flights cancelling. So, cancellation – we want to make sure that the airlines as well do their part,” Alghabra said Tuesday in Ottawa. “We’re making sure that the airlines keep up their end of the bargain.”
John Gradek, head of McGill University’s aviation management program, says “airlines have used Ottawa as a ‘scapegoat’ while scheduling more flights than they have staff or resources to provide, resulting in scenes of endless lines, flight delays, cancellations, and daily turmoil at airports – particularly Toronto’s Pearson airport.
“The airlines basically have shot themselves in the foot by really throwing a lot more capacity at the world than they have resources to be able to handle,” he says.
“They’re being very aggressive in the marketplace, getting lots of traffic – airplanes are often at 90% load factor – and don’t have any idle assets hanging around just in case things go wrong. And then that’s a formula for disaster when things do start to go wrong.”
Passengers 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 and occupied baggage handlers to unplanned mechanical maintenance.
Kinks in one part of the air travel pipeline can affect others, with overflowing customs areas stopping flight crews from disembarking, for example, or a lack of airline customer service agents exacerbating delays.
Not all industry watchers agree with the transport minister’s take on more than two months of travel turbulence.
“Airlines do have to take responsibility, particularly for taking care of their customers. But he’s being disingenuous in trying to shift blame,” says former Air Canada chief operating officer Duncan Dee. “No airline anywhere on the planet can staff themselves or procure enough spare aircraft to make up for what is amounting to almost 90 days of delays caused by government service failures in Canada so far.”
Airports, meanwhile, have consistently blamed customs staff shortages, arrivals testing and the ArriveCan app for slowing down customs clearance.
“Without government intervention to reduce screening and border processing times, passengers would be facing even further congestion and lengthier holds onboard planes – a situation which is already untenable,” said GTAA authority spokesman Ryan White in May.
Since that time, Alghabra says Canada’s airport security agency has hired more than 900 screeners (though many remain in training), and random arrivals testing has been suspended until at least June 30, when it will be moved off site.