Health Committee on June 22nd, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Dr. Chung.

We go now to Air Transat.

Mr. Liebman or Captain Bourdages, please go ahead for 10 minutes.

[Howard Liebman, Senior Director, Government and Community Affairs, Air Transat]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and honourable members of the committee.

My name is Howard Liebman. I am the senior director of government and community affairs at Transat, and I represent Air Transat.

With me today to help in answering your questions is Captain Dave Bourdages, vice-president of in-flight service and customer experience at Air Transat. Captain Bourdages is our airline operational lead in dealing with the COVID-19 emergency and recovery efforts.

Transat is a leading integrated international tourism company specializing in holiday travel, founded in 1987. It offers vacation packages, hotel stays and air travel under the Transat and Air Transat brands to some 60 destinations in the Americas and Europe. Transat is firmly committed to sustainable tourism development, as reflected in its multiple corporate responsibility initiatives over the past 12 years, and was the first tour operator to be awarded Travelife certification, in 2018.

Based in Montreal, the company has approximately 5,000 employees, of which a high point of 85% were forced to be laid off as a result of the crisis. Air Transat is the second-largest operator of international passenger airline services in Canada, with a fleet of 40 large commercial airliners. Our core market and business strategy are based on a point-to-point international flight network, primarily in the leisure travel segment, and that has been decimated by the crisis.

I respectfully remind the honourable members of this committee that air transport is a vital component of our national transportation infrastructure and a locomotive for the Canadian economy. Aviation-enabled travel and tourism facilitate and support over one million jobs in every region of our country, far more than any other industry in the private sector. This critical part of our national economy has suffered the brunt of the economic harm brought on by the pandemic, and without robust government support and a focused strategy for reopening borders, it will suffer irreparable harm. In short, there is no national economic recovery without aviation and tourism actively helping to propel it forward.

I would now like to briefly share with you the details of our company's operational response to COVID-19 and the severe financial stress that the pandemic is placing on our business. I will also outline our plans going forward as we prepare for a safe, smart and measured restart.

With the onset of the pandemic in Canada in mid-March and the swift government pronouncement of international travel restrictions on non-essential travel, travel bans and quarantine measures, complemented by provincial orders closing businesses, Transat moved quickly into a repatriation operation. Air Transat flights operated during the last two weeks of March were mainly intended for the repatriation of Transat customers back to Canada or their country of origin.

While sales and revenues completely collapsed, we operated hundreds of previously scheduled and special flight segments at a cost of tens of millions of dollars, most of them departing Canada empty, ultimately repatriating some 65,000 clients home in a period of just two weeks. We also partnered with Global Affairs to operate six dedicated repatriation charter flights. Additionally, Transat donated supplies of PPE—namely, 44,000 masks and 300,000 pairs of gloves—to the Quebec government on April 2 to assist with the urgent supply needs in our communities at the time.

Unique among today's panel, Transat suspended all of our flights and operations completely as of April 1 in the face of Canadian and worldwide travel restrictions and border closures to non-essential travel, and the resulting unprecedented revenue collapse and ongoing market uncertainty, to preserve our liquidities and protect the long-term viability of our business. Ours is a highly capital- and labour-intensive industry, and our commercial planning and strategy were never intended to deal with such extreme market conditions. We were certainly not alone in this respect.

As a resilient 33-year-old company that has successfully weathered many challenges and storms in the past, we took action. In March, we drew down on a $50-million revolving credit facility. Senior executives and the board have voluntarily reduced compensation ranging from 10% to 20%. The retirement of all of our Airbus A310 aircraft from our fleet occurred in March.

As mentioned earlier, 85% of our staff had been laid off. However, on April 16, Air Transat took advantage of the emergency wage subsidy, which was extended to all of our laid-off staff. We are actively renegotiating contracts with suppliers and aircraft lessors.

As noted, the travel and tourism industry are most directly and severely impacted by the pandemic. Consequently, the UN World Tourism Organization has issued a call on governments and international organizations to include travel and tourism as a priority in recovery plans. In Canada, leading travel and tourism organizations formed the Canadian travel and tourism round table, now joined by business leaders beyond our industry, which has called on the federal and provincial governments to remove travel restrictions as soon as possible based on established safe restart and recovery protocols.

Indeed, the International Civil Aviation Organization recently published the recommendations of a special state working group, which includes Canada, that would serve as a road map for its 200 member states for the safe restart of air transportation operations worldwide. These include protocols that seek to maximize biosecurity during all aspects of the airport and air travel experience and minimize the risk of further contagion. Captain Bourdages can provide further details, as necessary.

The federal government thereafter established an interdepartmental working group of experts, led by Transport Canada, which is working with industry experts, including Canada's major airlines and airports, to incorporate these recommendations into a national plan. It's imperative that this plan be approved for implementation and that it form the basis of properly risk-managed decisions to be taken regarding the loosening of non-essential travel restrictions and quarantine requirements.

Furthermore, we are fully mindful that numerous regions of the world remain problematic in terms of their infection rate trends, and the restart must not be a facilitator for the import of this contagion into our country. This is why many countries are now actively considering the implementation of safe-to-safe air corridors based on mutually recognized and robust national restart strategies, ideally based on the ICAO harmonized principles.

We strongly urge the federal government to actively pursue a similar strategy and to immediately initiate bilateral discussions to this end with Canada's key travel country partners that have shown sustained improvement in negative infection trends, including the European Union, the U.K., Mexico and other countries of the Caribbean and Latin America that have demonstrated minimal infection rates.

Third, it is essential that consideration by cabinet regarding the removal of non-essential travel restrictions be fully integrated with the lessening of quarantine requirements, especially with safe travel corridor partner countries. Indeed, in the context of restarting and promoting visitor and tourist travel to Canada, it rapidly becomes a moot point if we continue to require self-isolation for discretionary travel. This is a particularly important point for Air Transat, as mentioned at the outset, as a leisure travel operator.

Fourth, leisure travellers will stay home if they do not have access to insurance that could cover COVID-related illness and treatment. Insurance companies in Canada are currently denying such coverage to travellers. Fortunately, it is our understanding from the insurance industry that this can be remedied by reducing or eliminating Canada's level 3 global travel advisory to avoid all non-essential travel, especially with safe corridor countries. We therefore request Global Affairs Canada to actively undertake to review and adjust its advisories accordingly, in conjunction with the above-mentioned safe restart and travel corridor strategies.

Transat is doing its part corporately as well for the health and safety concerns of our customers by creating Traveller Care, a comprehensive end-to-end program featuring enhanced health and safety measures at all points of contact.

On the basis of the above, we have cautiously proceeded to announce the gradual resumption of a small percentage of flight and tour operating activities on July 23, including service to 18 destinations in Europe and the Caribbean as well as domestic services between Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary. The success of these operations will be directly dependent on expeditious government action as requested herein, which in turn will allow for even more robust services as we move through the summer and into autumn.

Thank you again for inviting me here today. Captain Bourdages and I look forward to the discussion.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Liebman.

We will go now to WestJet Airlines.

Mr. Mikoch-Gerke, please go ahead for 10 minutes.

[Jared Mikoch-Gerke, Manager, Aviation Security, WestJet Airlines Ltd.]

Good afternoon and thank you, Mr. Chair and honourable members of this committee, for the invitation to speak with you today.

I'm here today to provide the committee with some details on the operational response to COVID-19 and share with you the safety measures we have implemented for our people and for our guests.

My name is Jared Mikoch-Gerke, and I'm the manager of aviation security for the WestJet group of companies. In my capacity, I serve as a subject matter expert on legislation and regulatory policy across our global network.

The COVID-19 crisis has had a devastating effect on the global aviation sector that no country or carrier has been immune to. Prior to this crisis, WestJet had 14,000 employees operating 700-plus flights carrying roughly 70,000 guests per day throughout our growing international network.

As of today, we've had to park two-thirds of our fleet. Our workforce has been reduced by 9,000, and we are operating about 100 flights a day carrying less than 10% of the number of guests that we normally would have. We haven't flown a scheduled flight to the United States or international locations since March 23. While we believe that we have now entered what we are calling the stability phase of this crisis, we don't anticipate a true recovery to pre-COVID levels until 2022.

Later in my comments, I hope to impart some considerations for the committee on how we can collectively work together on recovery efforts.

What has been highlighted by this crisis, however, is the steadfast reminder that commercial aviation is an essential service and a crucial element of critical infrastructure, which is now more than ever important for the transportation of critical workers and goods. While we are operating a reduced schedule, we have remained committed to serving every market in Canada that we did prior to this crisis, and we have increased our cargo capacity to transport critical medical goods and PPE. Safety above all is paramount to us, and we have been unwavering in our commitment to ensuring the safety of our employees and guests during these challenging times.

We have continuously evolved our response throughout this crisis, and right from the outset we took actions to ensure that our people were protected right across the organization. At our head office here in Calgary, at the beginning of this crisis we seamlessly moved all our employees who are not operationally critical to working remotely. For those who were needed in our office space, we implemented physically spaced workstations and made available hand sanitizer, disinfecting wipes, gloves and masks for all employees. We further implemented enhanced frequent cleaning of all high-touch points and fogging of our office spaces.

In our operations control centre, we have 24-7 cleaners embedded, who are continually cleaning high-touch areas and providing fresh desks for shift change. For our technical operations team, we've provided them all the necessary PPE, along with half- and full-face respirators. We implemented temperature checks for all personnel, to be recorded on arrival to work, and we require that face masks be worn when unable to socially distance during maintenance tasks. We have increased the sterilization and cleaning of all work areas and touch points.

For our airports and in-flight teams, we provided gloves, masks, disposable gowns, safety glasses, face shields and hand sanitizer. We implemented enhanced surface and lavatory cleaning on board our aircraft, and we have dedicated a lavatory for crew members where possible. We modified our crew accommodations practices and have assigned crew to in-terminal hotels, where possible, to prevent the need for transportation. In airports, we worked closely with our airport partners to ensure enhanced cleaning of any common-use areas, and we have increased our cleaning frequency of major touch-point areas of service.

To date, we have had 29 employees who have tested positive for COVID-19. We are thankful that none had serious health complications and the majority have since recovered completely.

I want to take this opportunity to provide our thanks and give enormous appreciation to all WestJet front-line workers, who have risen to the challenge and continue to provide their exemplary caring, friendly and compassionate guest service in the face of this crisis.

For our guests, we recognized right away that it is critical we make sure they feel safe when travelling with us. Regardless of why our guests are flying, whether it be reporting for work as needed or to be with a sick loved one, we exceeded the health measures recommended and, on our own accord, implemented a very rigorous and consistent approach to their health and safety.

We worked collaboratively with Transport Canada on the quick implementation of all orders in council and emergency orders for the implementation of a health questionnaire and consistent observations of any ill guests and, more recently, the requirement for guests and crew members to wear masks at all times during travel.

In addition to these requirements, we implemented seat blocking to provide social distancing on board our aircraft during the most critical months of this crisis. We enhanced the cleaning of our aircraft to include disinfection of all guest contact surfaces and included electrostatic fogging of every aircraft during overnight stops and on long turns in our hub cities.

We implemented temperature checks for all guests in alignment with the WHO standards and provided them with disinfectant wipes during boarding to allow them to personally wipe down their areas as they chose. We also modified our food and beverage service to reduce touch points by removing service on short flights and providing guests with individually packaged goods on board for longer flights, and we removed all non-essential seatback literature.

Each of our aircraft is equipped with hospital-grade HEPA filters that capture over 99.99% of all contaminants, including coronaviruses, and the cabin air is fully refreshed every six minutes. We truly believe that Canadian aviation has led the way internationally in the implementation of an industry-leading biosecurity plan.

The safety of our guests and employees is without hesitation our top priority. In addition to the physical measures we have taken, we have committed to being open and transparent throughout this rapidly evolving situation. We were the only airline in Canada to publicly share, directly on our website and through our social channels, flights that were identified by the Public Health Agency of Canada as having a positive case on board. We specified the affected rows, which are considered close contact and may be at risk of exposure.

Any aircraft where an individual was identified as displaying symptoms, or that was determined to have had a positive case on board, was removed from service to have a full, detailed cleaning and disinfection, along with replacement of the HEPA filter. There has not been a single case of COVID-19 transmission on board a commercial flight. This is a true testament to the sterile environment on board aircraft and the enhanced disinfection and health measures that have been put in place since this crisis began.

The aviation industry is unbelievably resilient and adaptable. When border closures started to transpire, we were able to quickly stand down and rightsize our business for the incredible downturn that occurred. The restart and recovery, though, is much more complex and has many incumbent challenges. Our first priority was ensuring that we have consistent and scalable health measures in place to ensure the safety of our crew and our guests, which we do. We are fully compliant with the report recommendations of the International Civil Aviation Organization council's aviation recovery task force, or CART.

As we look towards recovery, we require the support of all levels and departments of government to utilize the measures that we have taken as part of a plan to reopen commercial aviation and reinstill consumer confidence. We need to work towards a national strategy and eliminate inconsistent provincial border restrictions to allow for the free movement of Canadians across the country.

We also believe that it is in Canada's interest to develop bilateral or multilateral agreements on sterile corridors and remove quarantine requirements on these routes. These would be routes between international locations that have done an effective job in controlling COVID-19, similar to the discussions occurring on the trans-Tasman bubble between Australia and New Zealand, or what has occurred for travel within the EU.

We are confident that we are well prepared for Canadians to return to travel safely. We are now calling on government to help do so and to develop a scalable plan for reopening. As more important elements, such as effective testing and contact tracing, become available, we stand ready to assist and implement further measures that come with reduced travel restrictions as we all adapt to our new normal.

Thank you for your time. I look forward to your questions and further discussion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Mikoch-Gerke.

We go now to our questions. We will do two rounds of questions, and we will start the first round with Mr. Doherty.

Mr. Doherty, please go ahead for six minutes.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank our colleagues for being here. Having had a 22-year career in aviation, it's always great to talk with fellow aviation geeks. I guess that's what we would call ourselves.

I do want to start by saying that the last few months have been extremely difficult for the airline industry. It has been incredibly difficult for me, as a former aviation executive, to sit and listen to some of the things I've been hearing. Sadly, I get the impression from some of my colleagues that they feel we can just flip a switch and our sector will rebound.

I am heartened to hear the comments such as from Howard, at Air Transat, as well as you, Jared, from WestJet. This is a vital component of our national economy. We need to do everything in our power to start looking now for a plan and to start developing that plan to reopen our doors and our borders and get our planes flying. That starts at the top.

I'm going to direct this question to Dr. Chung. I'm not sure whether you're familiar with it, but last week the minister responded to a question by my colleague: “Minister, would I be more or less likely to acquire coronavirus at Pearson Airport or Union Station, in your opinion?” I'll paraphrase, because the blues don't accurately capture what the minister said, but the video is clear as day.

The minister said that in his opinion the whole airline or aviation experience—from arriving at the airport, to checking in, to boarding the aircraft, to flying and then picking up your luggage—is more dangerous, and that you're more susceptible to contract COVID.

Dr. Chung, would you agree or disagree with that?

[Dr. Jim Chung]

Thank you for your question. I will answer it in English.

What I can say is that we have taken every measure possible to mitigate the risk of acquiring COVID throughout the entire journey. This includes the process of checking through the airport; the wearing of a mask, even at the arrival at the airport; the reduction of personnel allowed into the airport unless they have a verified boarding pass; the separation and proper social distancing within the airport; boarding by zones, from the back to the front; handing out protective gear, including hand sanitizer, wipes and masks; and the mandating of wearing masks throughout the flight.

As my colleagues at WestJet have noted as well, the frequent air exchange is at the hospital OR-level HEPA filtration; and even on arrival, all the sanitation measures are in place. With that cascade or multi-layer risk mitigation, we feel that we have reduced the risk as significantly as possible with respect to the journey.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Earlier in the process, with one stroke of the pen, airline and airport staff were immediately thrust to the front lines of the fight against COVID and its spread.

At any time, were the airlines provided with personal protective equipment and/or temperature screening?

I'll open that up to the three carriers.

[Ferio Pugliese]

I'm going to ask Jim to comment further on that because he has some insight.

[Dr. Jim Chung]

Sure.

Could you just clarify that question? Do you mean the provision of PPE for our crew?

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Yes. For front-line airports and air crew, was PPE provided to the airlines at any time by the government?

[Dr. Jim Chung]

Specifically, did the government provide us with PPE? Is that the question?

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Yes.

[Dr. Jim Chung]

When we noted the outbreak, we quickly implemented measures to protect our own employees and customers. We provided them with personal protective equipment, including facial masks, and adjusted our service specifications and reviewed our check-in procedures and boarding procedures. We introduced new standards for protection and cleaning.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Would you say the government was initially slow to react?

[Dr. Jim Chung]

It's probably not in my area to comment on that other than to say we were all learning. This was relatively new. There's no manual or playbook for this.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Okay.

Could you tell me how many Air Canada employees contracted COVID?

[Dr. Jim Chung]

For reasons of privacy, we can't really get into numbers. Having said that, consistent with our WestJet colleagues, we thankfully have had no fatalities. The numbers are consistent with the Canadian public at large.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Doherty. You have two seconds left, but I'm going to cut you off.

We go now to Dr. Powlowski for six minutes.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

I love travelling and I trust that in future years I will fly many times with all of your airlines. All of your companies have been extremely responsible corporate citizens, and certainly you all seem to play a role in our national response to the pandemic in repatriating people and transporting essential goods like PPE, and you all ought to be commended for this.

I also want to acknowledge the fact that you're all taking a big financial hit. I know it has been an existential threat to the airline industry, given that we practically have no one flying.

That said, Mr. Pugliese, and I think all of you have said that you have to be prudent as you reopen and start flying again, I'm thinking that we may not want to open all routes as quickly. For some routes like Toronto to Thunder Bay—and I'm the member of Parliament for Thunder Bay—Thunder Bay has very few COVID-19 cases, with maybe two cases a week, whereas metropolitan Toronto obviously has a lot more.

When the airlines were going full bore, about 1,000 people were going in and out between Thunder Bay and Toronto. Even though a lot of people in Thunder Bay have taken a big hit, such as the people who run restaurants, who have had to close down, we haven't had a hit because we haven't had that many cases. If we start opening these routes again, the hospital is potentially suddenly going to face a lot more difficulties, as will the first nations communities further up north, which are at high risk because Thunder Bay is that hub. I'm not sure we want to open Thunder Bay to Toronto.

That said, how about opening more routes between safe destinations? Places like Thunder Bay have pretty low rates; Newfoundland has fairly low rates and Manitoba and B.C. have low rates. There are currently no routes flying, for example, from Thunder Bay to St. John's or Winnipeg to St. John's. I think there was also mention made of international connections between safe destinations.

Is each airline potentially contemplating opening those kinds of routes, establishing new routes, to get going quickly?

[Ferio Pugliese]

My airline colleagues, I'll take a stab at that one first and pass it around for others' thoughts.

That's a very good question. I have a few things to say in response. First and foremost, when we refer to prudent and safe measures, it's not just about unlocking the economy and travel without having safe measures in place that do two things in particular. One, first and foremost, is to ensure the health, safety and well-being of the travelling public. We're very good at that. We're in the safety business and the risk management business. That's what we do in aviation, and I would even speak on behalf of many of our tourism colleagues and the work they do. They do the same. Health and safety is priority one, and we need to have measures in place.

The prudent measures then include our adoption of what we know are proven measures around the world today when do open up. We know that elements like PPE; social distancing, where appropriate; thermal scanning, which is now in place in airports with temperature checks; and contact tracing and even testing as technologies start to evolve, these are the things to watch. What health authorities and aviation organizations around the world are adopting for opening their economies, we, too, need to be adapting and adjusting to that in Canada. I would just say that it needs to move at a better pace than it has thus far.

That takes me to the second thing, because there are really five things that happen today that are confusing the level of travel. We have no foreign nationals allowed into the country. We have blanket advisories on avoiding travel at all costs. These have been messages that have been put out. The 14-day quarantine rules apply in some jurisdictions and not others. They apply across Canada, and we're finding that in other parts of the globe, where prudent and where they're seeing curves drop and R factors dropping, these are being lifted. We have closure of air, land, and sea borders. We also have a host of changes and some confusion across the country about what provinces we can travel to. A number of those things need to be fleshed out, but in order to do that, we're suggesting that we would come forward and put together measures, and we have safe measures to allow people to travel and transit through airports and onto the aircraft in a safe fashion.

To your other question, giving thought to and contemplating where to travel, we would be very much in support of saying no. We look at opening up international borders, transborder with the United States, and even within Canada in places we know are low risk. If we were to look at connections around the world, we might look at countries where they've seen a declining curve and where they've taken safe, prudent measures to open their economies. Why not partner with them, and why is Canada not on the list of those countries to reopen?

These are the sorts of measures and our lens as to how we would look at reopening. That's what I mean about measured and prudent.

I'll stop and allow my colleagues to comment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Dr. Powlowski. Your time's up.

We go now to M. Thériault.

M. Thériault, go ahead for six minutes, please.

Mr. Thériault, you have six minutes.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Gentlemen, thank you for your presentations. They have enlightened us about the impact of this crisis on air transportation.

On May 28, the Quebec National Assembly unanimously passed a motion asking the following of the Canadian government:

That the National Assembly ask the Canadian government to order airlines and other carriers under federal jurisdiction to allow customers whose trips were cancelled due to the current pandemic to obtain a refund.

Obviously, that did not convince the federal government.

Were you required to provide written evidence or demonstrate to the government that there would be catastrophic effects if customers who requested a refund were paid back?

[Jared Mikoch-Gerke]

Mr. Chair, we value the feedback we are receiving from all guests and appreciate how difficult this unprecedented situation is for all.

As the CTA noted in the April 22 clarification, airlines tariffs do not always provide for cash refunds, especially in cases beyond our control. WestJet believes refunding with travel credits is an appropriate and responsible approach in extraordinary circumstances such as the COVID-19 crisis.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Where is that money right now? It is understood that the money does not belong to you since no transaction has taken place.