There was a lot of blame going on yesterday as airline executives and airport authorities spoke to the House of Commons standing committee on transport about the chaotic holiday travel season that left hundreds of Canadians stranded abroad and thousands of others unable to complete holiday travel plans.
Sunwing Airlines president Len Corrado and Sunwing Travel Group president of tour operations Andrew Dawson were among the executives summoned by the committee.
Dawson revealed that the company has received 7,000 complaints from customers unhappy with holiday season performance. The company cancelled 67 flights between December 15 and 31. Part of the problem was a major storm impacting much of Canada just before Christmas.
But Sunwing said part of the problem stemmed in part from a federal government decision to decline its request to hire 63 pilots as temporary foreign workers.
Executives from WestJet and Air Canada also spoke to the committee, but it was Sunwing that was the focus of many questions from MPs.
Corrado began with an apology. "We failed to deliver to the level that we had expected, and that Canadians had expected from us over this holiday season," he said.
Sunwing president of tour operations Andrew Dawson. (Andrew Dawson)
Asked why Sunwing sold flights when it didn't have pilots to fly its planes, Corrado responded that the application to hire 63 foreign pilots was designed to meet the demand, and the airline's legal team told execs the application would be successful. Word that the application had been denied was received on December 9, Corrado said, too late to alter its schedule.
Other airline executives also cited bad weather, staffing shortages and cold-induced equipment and infrastructure failures as elements leading to the holiday breakdown.
"In my 22 years at WestJet, this was the most significant weather-induced disruption that I have experienced," Scott Wilson, WestJet's vice-president of flight operations, told committee members. "Mother Nature always has the ability to show us where our limits are."
WestJet cancelled over 1,600 flights between December 16 and January 8.
Deborah Flint, president and CEO of the GTAA, which operated Toronto Pearson airport, also blamed weather and labour issues for the holiday disruptions.
"This holiday, what happened, it was really a perfect storm of significant, epic bad weather, and in an industry that is healing from the COVID extended shutdown," Flint said. She said the industry needs to find a way to appeal to more prospective employees.
Both Sunwing and WestJet executives agreed that their companies need to improve on customer communications and said they are working on improvements. Poor communications were cited by many travellers as contributing to the pain of travel delays and cancellations.
Air Canada's vice-president of government and community relations David Rheault said the government should invest more of the taxes and fees it collects from airlines into industry infrastructure so that it can cope more effectively with weather disruptions.
"We need to move forward with digitization, facility upgrades and other improvements," Rheault said.
Airline representatives complained that they are the only ones held responsible for travel problems, when there are more forces at play.
"The government must address the most glaring gap in consumer protection in Canada today," said WestJet VP of external affairs Andrew Gibbons. "This is the fact that your delay or cancel can be caused by many groups, yet only airlines have regulations governing our activities."
Gibbons added: "This includes government entities, airport authorities, NAV Canada, and others. Strengthening overall accountability across our entire aviation system will improve service for all, bring down complaints, and provide the transparency our guests and all travellers deserve."
Transport Minister Omar Alghabra (Transport Minister Omar Alghabra)The holiday air travel meltdown has once again shone a spotlight on Canada's process for handling travel complaints, which were ostensibly strengthened with a new Air Passenger Bill of Rights last year.
Opposition parties are calling for airlines to automatically compensate travellers for delays and cancellations rather than forcing them to navigate a process that has a backlog of more than 30,000 claims.
Minister of Transport Omar Alghabra indicated prior to the hearing that the federal government is already working on changes to the legislation that will but more of a burden on airlines to settle complaints.
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