Toronto Mayor John Torrey is talking about lagging behind Pearson Airport after a video of former NHL player Ryan Whitney describing a chaotic night of delays he encountered while trying to reach Boston went viral.
“The current situation at the airport is not acceptable. It’s just not acceptable, “Tori told a news conference on Tuesday morning. “It’s not just Toronto’s problem. (Pearson) is the door to all of Canada.
Whitney’s video, in which he called Pearson “the worst place on earth,” garnered nearly two million views on Twitter.
In it, he summed up a disappointing experience, trying to catch a connecting flight to Boston and spending “six hours” in line waiting for help after his original flight was canceled. He said he was eventually re-booked for another flight the next morning, only to be re-booked for an earlier flight without being notified of the time change.
There have been a number of delays in Pearson in recent weeks, with the GTAA suggesting some of the blame is a shortage of staff in various functions, including customs.
Torrey said he had spoken to Deborah Flint, executive director of the Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA), as well as Federal Transport Minister Omar Algabra and Public Security Minister Marco Mendosino about the need to address all the problems plaguing the airport at once.
Algabra told reporters in Ottawa on Tuesday that the federal government wants to rectify the situation as soon as possible, noting that it has “the greatest sense of urgency.”
He said airport officials were working “tirelessly” to get people moving and that the federal government was doing everything it could to help.
“I know it’s disappointing. “We will do everything possible to provide the resources they need, to help logistically, to provide the support they need,” he said.
Last week, Mississauga and GTAA officials called on the federal government to remove random tests for COVID-19 on arrival and duplicate health checks at Pearson Airport. At present, the federal government has not agreed to ease these requirements. The only change is the abolition of mandatory random testing for international to domestic relations.
Today, the GTAA, which runs Pearson, said it remained “committed to working with the federal government and other aviation stakeholders on all specific decisions.”
The agency also thanked the federal government for increasing the agency’s staff on-site in Pearson, but said more needs to be done to reduce waiting times for passengers before the summer travel season.
They reiterated their call for the elimination of the time-consuming COVID-19 “duplicate public health issues and processes” at airports, especially during peak hours.
“We continue to call on the federal government to urgently streamline or eliminate incoming inherited public health requirements at Canadian airports, thereby helping to alleviate the difficulties for arriving international passengers,” the GTAA said in a statement to CP24.
“We also ask the federal government to quickly move random off-site tests from airports in Canada or to explore other effective and proven options, such as community wastewater testing.
The interim president of the Canadian Airport Council said that the airports she called complex ecosystems face many challenges these days, and just when there seems to be little progress in one area, challenges are emerging in another.
Speaking to CP24, Monet Pascher also said “a lot of work remains to be done” to deal with delays and long waiting times at Canadian airports.
Like the GTAA, Pascher said her organization is also in favor of eliminating random tests for COVID-19, especially at international border crossings. She also said another way to tackle the backlog is to no longer require vaccine mandates for both passengers and airport staff.
Speaking in the media on Tuesday, NDP federal leader Jagmit Singh said delays and delays at airports across Canada, including Pearson, were not “surprising” as people traveled more due to the abolition of COVID-19 mandates.
“It was something we could have foreseen and the federal government had to move earlier to make sure we had enough staff at the airports, enough staff in the passport services to make sure we were meeting the demand for which we knew he would come, “he said. , adding that the NDP would make sure that they have “adequate levels of staff (on the ground) to meet people’s needs”.
“It is the government’s responsibility to see what happens next, to plan for it, and as soon as those mandates were revoked, more staff had to be hired.
Add Comment