Air Canada plans to reduce its flights in July and August, according to a statement from the company’s president, as the airline continues to deal with “customer service shortages.”
“Unfortunately, things are not as usual in our industry worldwide, and this affects our operations and our ability to serve you with our normal standards of care,” wrote Michael Rousseau.
The airline will reduce its capacity as summer travel peaks and pandemic-related travel restrictions continue to rise.
In an email to CTV News Channel, an Air Canada spokesman said the company would reduce its schedule by an average of 154 flights a day for July and August. Prior to that change, Air Canada said it operated about 1,000 flights a day. The most affected routes are flights to and from airports in Toronto and Montreal. The changes will reduce the frequency of these flights and will mainly affect evening and late night flights of smaller airline aircraft.
The spokesman also said the airline would temporarily suspend routes between Montreal and Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Kelowna, and Toronto and Fort McMurray. International flights will remain largely unaffected, except for changes in the weather, which the spokesman said would reduce flights during peak hours.
“In order to achieve the level of operational stability we need, we are now reluctant to make significant cuts to our schedule in July and August to reduce passenger volume and flows to a level we believe the air transport system can handle. “, Reads the statement.
Although Rousseau acknowledged that this would have a “negative impact on some customers”, he said he hoped that providing this notice to the public about the airline’s reduced schedule would allow passengers to make other arrangements.
“We are convinced that these changes will lead to the improvements we are aiming for,” he said. “But in order to set expectations, it must also be understood that the real benefits of this action will take time and will be felt only gradually, as the industry regains the reliability and stability it achieved before the pandemic.
Recent data show that as we move into the summer travel season, more than half of all flights to and from some of Canada’s major airports are canceled or delayed as the tourism sector and airlines continue to face staff shortages.
On Wednesday, the CEO of Montreal-Trudeau Airport, where Air Canada said it would reduce some of its flights, told CTV News Montreal that the airport was already in discussions with airlines to reduce the number of flights.
“We are discussing and probably the frequencies – the number of flights we will have to a destination – or the destinations themselves,” said Philip Rainville, adding that the shortage of airport staff is causing problems, especially with loading and unloading aircraft.
Toronto Pearson International Airport is experiencing similar problems, with videos circulating on social media appearing to depict hundreds of pieces of luggage piled up in the baggage claim area.
“I held talks with the four largest airports and the two largest airlines on Thursday and will soon hold follow-up talks with them,” Transport Minister Omar Algabra told a news conference on Wednesday. “They know they need to add more resources and are working on it, and we offer our support to address these issues. But these are unacceptable questions. “
Airline and airport officials say some of the big reasons behind the fight against staff shortages in the industry are that they are not treated well and their pay is not enough for how difficult the job is.
“There are so many inspection staff who have left due to low pay and poor working conditions that airports are hugely understaffed,” David Lipton, a spokesman for the United Steelworkers union in Ottawa, told CTV National News on June 19. .
Lipton said some unions offer screening workers hundreds of dollars a week if they don’t take leave or sick days.
With files from CTV News Montreal, CTV News Toronto and Alexandra Mae Jones
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