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Transport Minister Omar Alghabra believes Canadians have forgotten how to travel
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May 24, 2022 • 14 hours ago • 5 minutes of reading • 242 comments Travelers queuing in the check-out room at the start of the long Victory Day holiday weekend at the Toronto Pearson International Airport in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, May 20, 2022. REUTERS / Cole Burston
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The problem with travel these days, according to the Minister of Transport of Canada, is travelers.
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They don’t know how to do it right. After being locked up in COVID’s hideouts for two years, they have been left without practice. They have forgotten how to wait their turn at check-in counters, load their luggage on conveyor belts, take out their boarding passes for repeated inspections or take off their shoes because 21 years ago a boy tried to hide a bomb in one.
According to Omar Alghabra, travelers must “adapt” to the new reality at the gates. Like professional athletes who rust between seasons, they need to rediscover their skills. “Take out the laptops, take out the liquids, it all adds up to 10 seconds here, 15 seconds there,” he said when asked about the massive traffic jams taking place at some Canadian airports.
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He maintains that the volume of travel remains below pre-pandemic levels while the security workforce is at 90%, so long delays and long waits could not be staffing issues, as they have. stated the airport authorities. No, it must be the fault of the people who have the tickets. Hockey players and baseball stars head to preseason camps after a long hiatus, why not air travelers too? Opening passports, answering questions, taking out bags full of liquids, going through security scanners, are skills that need to be honed regularly. “They have to adjust to that,” Alghabra said. “It wasn’t as steep as it is now, the peaks and the valleys.”
The extent to which passengers have become a travel problem became apparent over the long weekend when local police were repeatedly called to Canada’s largest airport to deal with undisciplined crowds of frustrated passengers. annoying to be locked up like cattle while flights were delayed, connections lost, luggage. lost, unanswered questions, and a lot of pressure-driven staff targeting complaints while higher authorities fought guilt like a ping-pong ball.
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The delay at Pearson International Airport grew so sharp that some tired passengers were forced to sleep at night where they could find space. Others spent hours searching for bags that somehow wandered to points throughout the transportation system. The Greater Toronto Airport Authority, which manages the airport, placed much of the responsibility on the airlines and the federal government. The airlines said it was Ottawa’s fault, while Ottawa, well, we know what Ottawa thinks, thanks to Minister Alghabra.
Of all the money, the GTAA sounds the most reasonable. It did not establish COVID rules that add additional processing time to all people going through the system, nor do they keep them in place long after other countries have lifted them. Do not unload the aircraft or attach the bags to the delivery belts. It does not hire or fire people who work for airlines, customs, immigration or federal security services. It’s not the fault of the ever-changing flight schedules, as airlines change planes and schedules to suit themselves and their seat load.
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Airlines, on the other hand, have a well-established reputation for putting corporate interests ahead of passengers, and have quickly promoted a quick return to air travel when they obviously can’t cope properly with the crush. As usual, they leave front-line staff to take on the weight of travelers who have paid their fare and endured all the growing indignities of air travel, only to be left to their own devices when problems arise. “All the front-line employees at the airport are working hard to handle an incredibly difficult situation on the ground,” the airport authority insisted in a plea to passengers. “We issued this general reminder to be kind, as our airport workers are doing everything they can.” But asking passengers to show civility and respect for staff falls on stony ground when those passengers do not receive any change.
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The chaos at the airport is the latest proof of the failure of the Trudeau government to properly prepare for the end of the pandemic. Passport offices have been unable to cope with the rush of passport demand, causing long queues outside government offices, with people arriving the night before to mark positions and self-employed “wireless” willing to take a seat. to the tail. for a healthy rate. Service Canada offices include daily queues of people who spend time waiting to have the opportunity to walk in the door of the “services” they have been promised.
The only job of the passengers is to show up on time, show their documents and do what they are told. They have no powers beyond that. Not everyone travels with the frequency or support of ministers; some fly only occasionally, and for others it is a rare event that should be endured only when necessary. However, somehow we all managed well enough before COVID arrived, without the need for basic training to efficiently put belongings in bags and backpacks after emptying them for security scans.
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According to Monette Pasher of the Canadian Airports Council, the additional tests, checks and health questions required by the federal authorities make it take four times longer to clean up passengers arriving than in the days before COVID. “We’re seeing that obviously we can’t have these public health requirements and tests on our borders as we go back to the usual trips,” he said. “The two cannot coexist without significant pressure and tension in our system.”
Don’t tell the Minister of Transport, who is “glad that Canadians are excited to travel again” and is sure that every effort is being made to address the delays.
Maybe this is the view from an office in Ottawa. I once met Jim Flaherty in a long line at Pearson Airport just after Christmas as people headed south to spend a few sunny days. Flaherty was Minister of Finance at the time and could have found a way to get special treatment, but he was content to take his place among the common people and be treated the same as them. If I had been to see the chaos at the same airport over the weekend, I doubt it would have been brazen especially controlled.
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