How Things Went So Horribly Wrong at YYZ
 

The Star has an interesting account of how things went so horribly wrong at Pearson Airport this summer. I thought I’d create a new thread for it since it intersects three or four existing ones. The key takeaway is that, in their assessment, the blame lies less with the government and more with the airport and airlines. (The airport and airlines have been blaming the government in an attempt to take the focus off their own failures.)

Excellent analysis.

Reasonable people have known its mainly the airlines' fault for weeks. The deflection narrative however was very strong, and has stuck in the minds of people.

I have flown out of Terminal three this whole year (5 flights ) and have not had any issues in delays or long line ups what so ever.Note, I did not check in any bags. It seems to me that it is Terminal One that is having all these issues (Air Canada).

No question that airlines have contributed to current problems by selling flights they have no hope of actually operating. No one argues that their goals of ramping things back up vastly exceed their ability to actually do so.

But some responsibility also lies with the federal government, for they alone are responsible for maintaining adequate staffing levels at security and customs - two areas that have been identified as major bottlenecks. The feds are also responsible for decisions around whether or not employees need to be fully vaccinated in order to report for work. Only Ottawa controls the mandated use of the ArriveCan app, and only Ottawa has control to invoke random covid testing - two other items identified as contributing to massive delays.

Blame doesn't lie solely with airlines, nor does it lie solely with government. Both have contributed to the current state of affairs.

That said, I expect more of government than trying to dodge all accountability and just blame everything on passengers who they claim are out of practice going through security. That's just plain insulting. If anyone should take a lead I'm straightening this out, it is Transport Canada, and that's just not happening.

Beyond the mess with CATSA, Transport Canada also responsible for backlogs in other aviation-related areas licensing pilots & ATC have come to light in recent days.

Air traffic controllers face licensing delays due to Transport Canada's crippling backlogs

'Completely dropped the ball': Transport Canada's endless delays ground pilots

So yes, some of the blame falls on the airlines and airport authorities but the Fed's are due a very hefty measure as well (I haven't even mentioned the passport debacle) so there's more than enough to go around for all parties involved.

The most frustrating thing is all stakeholders well knew the pandemic pause on travel for millions of Canadians would eventually end and demand would soar but rather than plan for an orderly scale-up it seems each entity was more intent on pointing out others failings while doing little if anything themselves.

You might also add the long delay in getting Nexus enrollments going again. Granted that's a dispute between the US and Canadian governments, but if even a small percentage of travelers could get Nexus, it would offer a bit of relief.

There is no excuse for the passport and Nexus gong shows. Ottawa has known right from the start that at some point, out-of-country travel would return. Both the passport and Nexus issues should have been dealt with proactively. But no. The government has dropped the ball big time, and its attempt to avoid any accountability by casting blame on passengers, airlines and airports for issues that Ottawa alone controls is nothing short of disgusting.

Yes, airlines have contributed to the problem by overzealous selling. But Ottawa alone controls most of the bigger pinch points. The minister of transport should lose his job.

As far as I'm concerned most of the blame needs to go to the government(s).
The government provide inadequate messaging, inadequate lead times on when measures would change, etc.
Business can't keep people on the payroll indefinitely waiting for the government to make a decision.

I don't know why there would be any backlogs at customs. None of them were laid off and it's not a work from home job.

CATSA is just an umbrella agency that uses third party contractors to provide employees.
Said contractors are businesses that need to turn a profit.
Again with inadequate messaging, these employers won't hire people in anticipation that reopening might happen.

I flew out of T3 earlier in the month on AA and it was a joke. The flight was at 6 am so I got there at 3. The AA kiosks weren't working right so there was a line to fix that . That took 45 minutes. We had no checked bags but the checked bag machines were off line till 4. We then lined up for security. So did Nexus and other priority passengers. Security didn't open till 4:30 so a long wait outside the security area. When I say lined up there were no stanchions so you found the end of the line and followed the guy in front of you. The security area doors opened up at 4:30 then we lined up for that. The preclearance area opened up at 4:45 but it was way after that that we got thru security. As the lineups were so bad prior to preclearance once you got there there were no lines so that went fast. We then walked to the gate and got there at 5:20. Overall the place was a zoo. Very little assistance and the lines were ridiculous with lines crossing lines. They need more staff and a bigger terminal.
On return to TO we used our ArriveCan apps to for Covid info and for our declarations. We went to the kiosks, got a printout and walked out. Didn't talk to anyone. I noticed lots of baggage lying around as we walked thru the baggage carousel area.
Except for TO the other airports we went thru were organized and while there was waiting it wasn't unexpected or very long,

Up until March or April this year, AC could've blamed the government for delays at customs and immigration but it's mostly AC itself to blame since then. UA is able to operate flights to YYZ mostly on time with some delays while AC, especially Jazz has been habitually canceling half the flights and delaying the other half. In many cases, I had experienced no delays at either customs or immigration, the inbound aircraft arrives on time, and yet flight is still departs late due to lack of ground staff. I have also seen too many cases where AC is not able to turn around an aircraft in outstations within the scheduled turn around time and the delays compounds. The same flight is delayed for hours almost daily for weeks and there were no action to remedy the delays until recently. Jazz particularly has an atrocious cancelation record which I suspect due to not having enough crew members to staff the flights.

And even then they only reduced the number of flights, but left the allocated turnaround time the same. Of course Jazz is especially affected when they're still scheduling flights as if turning around in 45 minutes is possible.