“This is ridiculous – this is not really well organized,” said Adam Brazier, who travels home with his family to PEI.
“A lot of people are going in the wrong direction right now because there is no one to tell us which lines to go on.”
Matthew Green, NDP MP for the Hamilton Center, arrived at Pearson Airport about 90 minutes before his domestic flight to Ottawa at 8:10 a.m. He says he arrived and found about 500 people lined up at the airport outside the gate, in what he described as a “disorganized, chaotic conga line”.
What immediately became apparent, Green said, was that the airport was “completely inadequate, unprepared and unable to accommodate the congestion that was taking place there.”
Green missed his original flight, waiting two hours before boarding another.
I’m back to Ottawa this morning from
The line to the gate has a depth of at least 500+.
There is no case I do this flight 8:10 pic.twitter.com/CAMdtxOwOs
– @ MatthewGreenNDP
The airport sent a message to Twitter on Monday morning, advising travelers to leave plenty of extra time and check the status of their flight before leaving for the terminal.
“We would like to remind passengers that terminal workers are doing their best to get them on their way,” the airport said in a statement.
Staff shortages, health checks causing delays
Several Canadian airports have had frustrated long queues of travelers due to a lack of security guards.
Vancouver has seen particularly high expectations, with passengers saying they have also missed domestic flights due to security check delays.
In an email to CBC News, the Canadian Aviation Safety Authority (CATSA) said it was making every effort to address the issue – but could not find enough staff.
CATSA, the federal crown company responsible for all passenger safety checks, says that once it manages to hire enough staff, it will also take time to train them.
Travelers at Toronto Pearson International Airport are waiting in long lines to enter their gate on Monday. (Chris Langenzarde / CBC)
Pearson also says health checks to cover the growing number of travelers have doubled processing times.
Green called it “completely unacceptable” that the airport could not anticipate delays as travel increased after the pandemic.
“What I heard from the staff is that it is now the third day, in fact, of chaos there,” he said.
“They knew this was happening, but we did not receive any communication from Air Canada to come sooner.”
Expect delays for the coming weeks
Speaking to reporters in Ottawa on Monday, Transport Minister Omar Alghabra said he shared the concerns of travelers facing delays as the country continued to see a “huge resurgence of appetite” for travel.
“I’m a traveler myself and I’ve seen lineups grow in recent weeks,” he said.
“Now we learn that once you turn off the economy, when you turn it on again it comes with imbalances.”
Alghabra says Transport Canada is working with CATSA to “ensure that we have sufficient resources to meet this wave of travel need”.
Asked about a timeline for when these issues could be resolved, Alghabra did not confirm.
“I do not think we will be able to resolve it immediately,” he said, adding that it would take at least a few weeks.
Travelers at Pearson Airport use online kiosks to check in on their flights on Monday. The airport says staff shortages across Canada and COVID-19-related health checks are causing delays. (Chris Langenzarde / CBC)
Expecting long queues and a mass influx of travelers, Manvir Jutla arrived five hours early for his 4pm flight to Vancouver.
“I do not miss my flight,” he said with a laugh.
Jen Baba is not so confident.
“I’m a little nervous, are we? [have] “a lot of luggage,” he said. “We hope we will not be late.”
Karan Panchal, who is traveling to India, said he was not yet sure when his flight would take off.
“My boarding pass has a different time and the flight time shown is different,” he said.
“It definitely influenced my plan.”
