Pearson Airport is #1 in delays and #4 in cancellations worldwide. A new investigative report in the Toronto Star points the finger at Air Canada and the GTAA for being greedy.
The Star;….the dominant narrative around the problems at Pearson — that they’ve been caused primarily by federal COVID rules — is at best partly true, and at worst, some experts argue, not just false but deliberately so. In reality, those experts say, the number one reason why so many passengers have had so many problems flying in to and out of Pearson this year is that the airlines simply sold far more seats this spring and summer than either they or the airport had the staff to accommodate.
“The airlines have been very greedy, and you can quote me on that,” said John Gradek, a former Air Canada executive who now lectures in aviation management at McGill University.
That’s not to say the government and the agency that runs Pearson don’t hold any blame. They do.
I assume Pierre Poilievre will correct his Pearson-walking- airport-waiting-COVIDrules-freedom-something video and explain that the cause of the problems at Pearson are due to airlines selling more seats than they or the airport could handle rather than federal COVID rules. https://t.co/ks6Tln9Yf3
— Catherine McKenna (@cathmckenna) July 23, 2022
“Almost all employers at the airport, there’s three or four hundred of them, are facing unprecedented labour shortages,” said Steven Tufts, a spokesperson for the Toronto Airport Workers’ Council. “They don’t have enough people.”
When Pearson scaled back operations in March 2020, a large number of the 55,000 people who worked for the airport and the companies that operate there were sent home. Only a fraction were brought back during the pandemic to keep the airport running. “I was (at) Air Canada, working Toronto Pearson at the time, and we laid off something like 80 per cent of our workers,” said Smith, a now retired passenger agent and long-time union organizer. “I had 36 years seniority and I was on the cusp of being laid off.”
Overall, Air Canada cut about 50 per cent of its workforce during the first few months of the pandemic, but that ratio was considerably higher for some airport roles. Chorus Aviation, which owns Jazz, Canada’s largest regional airline, cut about 54 per cent of its staff over the same period.
It wasn’t just the airlines either. Almost every airport or airport adjacent business was either fully shut down or running at fractional capacity during the pandemic. Baggage handlers, cleaning crews, security guards, flight attendants, gate agents, food service workers, ramp agents, fuellers, bridge operators: they were all let go in huge numbers starting in March 2020.
According to Tufts and Smith, most of them didn’t wait around for the airport to reopen. Instead, they went out and got new jobs. “You tell (most) of your workers to go away, they go away,” Smith said. “They find other things to do.”
Did you read that objectively or through the piss yellow colored glasses Pierre Poilievre’s braindead, simpleton followers all wear?
With Pearson airport still in chaos, more options for downtown Toronto travellers sure would help right about now.
But one of the first things Trudeau did in government was roadblock the Billy Bishop airport expansion.
As PM, I'll bring people together to approve it. pic.twitter.com/uU5g2rucUl
— Pierre Poilievre (@PierrePoilievre) July 21, 2022
According to every air travel expert and former Air Canada executive, Air Canada purposely overbooked flights to ramp up revenue without having enough staff. The GTAA is operating at a 50% staff reduction.
Air Canada/GTAA execs have been more than happy to allow news outlets and Conservative talking heads to gaslight random covid testing and Justin Trudeau’s mandates, but that’s all bullshit. Air Canada is purposely overbooking their flights, and the GTAA execs have been told not to hire people back, or employees found new gigs. It’s that simple.
After laying off 60-70% of their staff, Air Canada deliberately overbooked HUNDREDS of flights choosing to ‘figure it’ as they go because revenue (despite getting billions in federal pandemic aid) mattered more than human suffering, dead pets, and lost baggage. There’s a math formula for it in the airline industry. They consider the inconvenience a cost of doing business and hide behind political rhetoric instead of getting it right because they don’t have to. Air Canada is the only primary carrier in Canada, other than West Jet (who are doing the same thing, not on the same scale because they’re smaller), and they know you have ZERO choices, so fuck you and your two cats.
Day 1: denied to board the flight due to overbooking
Arrived at the destination at 1 am vs 3 pm. Luggage lost
Day 3: luggage located, them trying to send it to a wrong address
Day 4: luggage arrived! Time to check in for the return flight 🙂I still enjoyed my trip, Air Canada! pic.twitter.com/IUCBdbpBku
— Katrina (@BrezaKatrina) July 23, 2022
While Air Canada and the GTAA hid behind covid testing and masking mandates, air travel lobbyists and execs poured money and influence into Pierre Poilievre’s ongoing political disinformation campaign to deflect attention away from their extreme greed and incompetence. Like any inconvenience, the alt-right used it as a way to paint Trudeau and this feckless (it is feckless) Liberal government as the Killjoys responsible for Chaos. It couldn’t be farther from the truth, but Pierre lies for votes the same way a WWE heal plays the heal for a paycheck, and here we are.
So, why was he wearing the mask? Ohhhh…theatre, b/c people are dumb. Pearson is the only airport with these issues, almost entirely related to management by GTAA – but blame Trudeau b/c people don’t want to work at the airport for low pay, in a crappy job.
— Devil’s Advocate (@DevilsA62669071) June 11, 2022
We can blame Trudeau for a BUNCH of shit.
Calling a needless pandemic election two years early.
Kettling online free speech.
Constant virtue signaling and being super fucking soft on extremist crime.
You can’t blame him for Air Canada’s greed and the GTAA’s staffing incompetence.
You also can’t blame him for vaccination mandates entering Canada without blaming the United States and every other developed country that employs the same mandates, because we’re still in a fucking pandemic.
They’re all alt-right talking points. Ammunition to court the anti-Trudeau vote.
That’s it, that’s all. If you read and have an average IQ, you know these things. If you don’t, use this disinformation to feel good about how dumb you might not be, which you are.
DB
PS: Don’t check bags or pets this summer if you fly Air Canada. You’ll never see them again.
