With all these airport nightmare stories (not just in Canada, but also the US, UK, and across Europe), I've been looking for a good explanation for what exactly the causes are. To that end, I appreciated this breakdown in the AC press release (bolding mine):
Air Canada has been prudently restoring its schedule as it recovers from the effects of COVID-19 and this summer it plans to operate below its pre-pandemic capacity as the industry stabilizes. In support of this, the carrier has recalled employees laid off during the pandemic and continues to hire additional workers. It currently has 32,000 employees, versus approximately 33,000 prior to the pandemic while operating approximately 80 per cent of its June 2019 schedule.
So AC is at 97% of 2019 staffing levels while operating 80% of its 2019 schedule. I would love to see a similar figure for the airport staff vs. traffic comparison, because this only deepens the mystery for me. Whenever I've looked into why airports are such a mess, I've come across hand-wavy articles citing staff shortages as the main reason. But exactly how short are we at this point?