Amanda Stephenson, The Canadian Press Published Thursday, June 30, 2022 5:44 PM EDT Last Updated on Thursday, June 30, 2022 5:47 PM EDT
CALGARY – As the Canadian travel industry continues to struggle with an unprecedented rise in demand, WestJet Airlines Ltd. is making 32% fewer flights to and from Toronto Pearson International Airport in July than before the pandemic.
CEO Alexis von Hoensbroech said Calgary-based WestJet made a series of proactive reductions in hours between March and May in anticipation of the logistical problems caused by long alignments, thick connections and cancellation of flights experienced by travelers to Canadian airports in recent weeks.
“I don’t think there is another airline serving Toronto that has reduced its schedule as much as we did,” von Hoensbroech said in an interview Thursday. “We’ve been pretty proactive and thoughtful in dealing with our flight plans.”
As Canada’s largest airport, Toronto Pearson has been the epicenter of travel-related problems affecting that country’s air passengers since the lifting of COVID-related public health restrictions began. Airlines and airports that drastically reduced staffing levels when air travel by land almost stopped at the start of the pandemic have found themselves unprepared for the dramatic resurgence of demand this spring.
WestJet, for example, which reached a pandemic low of just 4,000 employees in 2020, has once again increased its count to 10,000, but is still nearly 30% lower than the 14,000 employees it had in 2019.
“We have hired more than 1,000 people over the last two months, and now we are hiring 100 more people just to meet the challenges of luggage. We have increased our call center staff by 20%,” von Hoensbroech said. .
“We’re doing our best to get staff, but we also know that in every industry we’re seeing a shortage of staff. It’s not just a WestJet problem, it’s not just an aviation problem, it’s a general economy problem.” .
According to analysis firm Data Wazo, 54% of domestic flights to Canada’s four largest airports were delayed or canceled over the past week. The hardest hit was Toronto’s Pearson Airport, with more than 700 flights (51 percent) delayed and 15 percent canceled.
On Wednesday night, Air Canada said it would cut more than 15 percent of its schedule during the months of July and August, more than 9,500 flights, due to airline system tension. Most Air Canada flights will remove the link to the airline’s Toronto and Montreal hubs.
But von Hoensbroech said that since WestJet moved earlier to reduce its capacity in Toronto, it does not expect to have to make any additional “structural” cuts to its summer schedule.
“It can still happen that we have to cancel flights with little notice, as has also happened in recent weeks,” he said. “But that should be to a limited extent.”
Airports in other parts of the country operate much more easily than Pearson, von Hoensbroech said. In the Alberta market, for example, WestJet has returned to its level of flight deals before the pandemic and things are working out relatively well.
Nationwide, WestJet operates approximately 530 flights a day this summer, or 25 percent fewer flights than it operated in the summer of 2019.
“We have the advantage that we have most of our capacity in the western part of Canada, and the western part of Canada is less affected by these operational challenges,” he said.
Earlier this year, aviation industry officials had blamed COVID-19 protocols, such as Canada’s random testing requirement for international arrivals, for contributing to bottlenecks at airports.
But problems continued to escalate this month, despite the federal government’s decision to stop the program, as well as other measures such as the federal hiring of security officers and customs.
“I think the only part to blame for this is the pandemic. Because that’s where the problems came from,” von Hoensbroech said. “I think what we can really say is that there is no party that does not do its homework. Everyone is trying to solve this problem. “
Von Hoensbroech said WestJet has done a lot of contingency planning for the long Canada Day weekend, which is expected to offer the highest travel volumes in the country since 2019. However, he said that the airline’s operating parameters, although they have improved in recent weeks, remain “far from good”, with passengers unlikely to see a significant break until travel volumes fall in September .
“We have our fingers crossed because this is going to be a relatively stable weekend. But again, the challenges are there,” he said. “After the summer holidays, things should look a lot better… And next year, we hope to be in a good position again.”
This report from The Canadian Press was first published on June 30, 2022.