Canada announces $2 million for Calgary airport, says more can be done to help travellers
Posted Aug 24, 2022 8:49 am.
Last Updated Aug 24, 2022 8:54 am.
The Calgary International Airport received nearly $2 million in funding from the federal government Tuesday, with the main focus on facilitating a contactless journey for travellers.
Annie Koutrakis, secretary to the minister of transport, announced the airport will receive the money to help improve current and future flight scheduling, connection times between flights, as well as establish dedicated corridors to enable physical distancing.
However, with ArriveCAN issues, a shortages of aviation staff, increased wait times, and recent reports of discrimination at the border, the grant from the government doesn’t address many of the concerns travellers have.
Koutrakis says that planning for the return of travellers after several COVID-19 pandemic restrictions eased didn’t go as planned.
“What we underestimated unfortunately was the desire to which everyone wanted to travel and everyone wanted to travel at the same time,” Koutrakis said.
“The data shows us that we were not anticipating everybody to start travelling to the degree that they did. It’s not like we were waiting and not planning behind the scenes to be ready for it. It’s just more could have been done.”
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Headaches related to the ArriveCAN app are ongoing, with municipalities in border towns saying the app is hindering their tourism sector.
ArriveCAN, which is required to be used by people travelling into Canada, asks travellers to provide vaccine information before entering the country. However, a glitch caused the app to ask over 10,000 travelers to quarantine for 10 days when they didn’t have to.
Omar Alghabra, Canada’s transport minister, recently blamed COVID-19 for travel delays when asked about the situation in the House of Commons.
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Meanwhile, Koutrakis is asking that people be patient.
“Know that your government is doing the very best that it can together with its partners, and it will get better,” Koutrakis said.
“We’re always looking to find different ways to make the processes more efficient and more effective, and to improve the experience of the passengers.”
She also says that removing restrictions around ArriveCAN and mask-wearing will do nothing to resolve delays travellers are experiencing, citing data Transport Canada had collected.
Airline staff shortages still an issue
Lesley Keyte, known as The Travel Lady, who runs a travel agency with the same name, says that the government’s funding doesn’t address the largest issue, which is airline industry staff shortages.
“The most pressing need at our airports right now are airport personnel, first and foremost, to do baggage, to do screening, all of that,” Keyte said.
“There’s been shortages of pilots, flight attendants. So all of those things combined have created the perfect storm. And passengers have really been through a lot over this very busy fly season.”
Keyte adds there is more the aviation industry and the federal government can do to help attract more staff to the floundering industry.
“The government needs to do some kind of wage subsidy to supplement the wages of these people, because they’re not prepared to go and take the kind of stress and strain and abuse that people have taken an airport for the minimum wages that they get,” Keyte said.
“We may need to make this a job that people want to do, and that’s rewarding for them financially. So, extra money going into that area would be a good idea.”
Bob Sartor, the president and CEO of Calgary Airport Authority, said that the staffing shortages are felt throughout the industry.
“The reality is [airlines] are facing, to a greater extent, issues that we face at YYC, and that is the need for additional staffing. They did what we did as an airport, and they reduced, significantly, their staffing during the pandemic,” Sartor said.
Sartor adds that it will be some time before airlines bolster their ranks with more staff, as training and recertifying is required of pilots and other personnel.
“Sometimes it can be two or three months. There are some things that have to happen, and one of the things is we need to get pilots certified. We need to get more staff like the air carriers do,” Sartor said.
“If we ever have one of these black swan events, and I pray we do not, we need a consolidated aviation sector restart plan.”
According to Transport Canada, from Aug. 8 to 4, 2022, 87 per cent of passengers at the four largest airports were screened within 15 minutes by the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority, an improvement from 79 per cent during the first week of July.
With files from Taylor Braat, and the Canadian Press
