Transport Committee on Feb. 27th, 2024

[Kurush Minocher, Executive Director, Customer Experience and Airline Relations, Greater Toronto Airports Authority]

Thank you, sir.

Thank you to the committee for the opportunity to appear as part of this important study into accessible transportation for persons with disabilities in Canada.

My name is Kurush Minocher. I'm the executive director of customer experience and airline relations at the Greater Toronto Airports Authority. We're the operating authority of Toronto Pearson International Airport.

We're always happy to work with the committee on issues related to our sector, and I look forward to our questions today.

As Canada's largest airport, Toronto Pearson has worked hard to identify, remove and prevent barriers for travel for all persons with disabilities both visible and invisible. In a typical year, we see more than one million passengers with disabilities pass through the airport. Implementing accessible and inclusive programs and services not only enriches the travel experience for all of our passengers but also cultivates a supportive and positive work environment for our employees. Above all, our vision is to make our airport the most accessible. Whether you're travelling with family, accompanied by a caregiver or making your way independently from curb to gate, our commitment is to ensure the journey is seamless as well as welcoming and enjoyable.

I'd like to take this opportunity to talk about what the GTAA is doing to ensure an accessible travel journey for everyone at Pearson.

In 2023, we launched our three-year accessibility plan. It's our road map to creating and maintaining impactful accessibility in our policies, programs, practices and services. We worked to proactively identify, prevent and remove barriers to offer meaningful access at Pearson. Our action plan is organized into several key areas and includes the built environment, transportation to and from the terminals, technologies that support your experience at Pearson, and the design and delivery of various services. Our plan also addresses our employment and procurement policies.

While I could spend a lot of time today talking about each of these areas, I want to focus on the services and programs available to help passengers with disabilities navigate the airport experience.

We're constantly working towards ensuring our programs and services enable more choice, comfort and independence as passengers move through the airport. In anything we do, we consistently involve people with lived experience in testing our facilities, driving continuous adaptation and innovation.

For passengers with mobility concerns, there are more than 1,500 wheelchairs available for use in the terminals. For those who wish to navigate the airport either independently or with their travel companion, these are available without the need for pre-arrangement.

We're also proud to say that Pearson was the first airport in Canada to launch the sunflower lanyard campaign. This program offers a subtle means for passengers with hidden disabilities to indicate to staff that they might require a little additional assistance or time.

In collaboration with organizations like the Lions Foundation of Canada, WestJet and CATSA, we host a monthly guide dog familiarization program. This initiative helps dogs in training get accustomed to the airport environment, but it also allows our staff to gain insights on best practices directly from trainers.

As we continuously research, learn about and adopt user-friendly digital tools with built-in accessibility, we will continue to integrate them into all aspects of the passenger journey. There are hundreds of brand new, fully accessible self-service kiosks throughout the airport—for parking, check-in and customs—and these all feature the latest in universal technology capabilities. To help with wayfinding, we offer Aira and BlindSquare for passengers who are blind or partially sighted. Aira is a free app on airport grounds that provides live, on-demand navigation assistance, while BlindSquare uses beacons for verbal navigation. To ensure there's public awareness for the services and programs available at Pearson, all of this information is available on our website, which was designed to be accessible for all.

Finally, we recognize that none of our work at Pearson would be possible without the hard work of the 1,800 staff who work for the GTAA and the 50,000 employees broadly across 400 organizations operating at Toronto Pearson. Our workforce is diversifying more every year, and we want to continue attracting and retaining talent inclusive of people with disabilities.

As a global gateway to Canada, we are excited about our progressive journey towards creating a fully barrier-free Toronto Pearson. We recognize that passengers and employees should not have to adapt their needs to have them met. We are taking steps necessary to integrate universal and human-centred design throughout the airport.

Thank you for the invitation to participate in this study. I'm happy to take your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you, Mr. Minocher.

Next, we'll go to Ms. Vrooman.

Ms. Vrooman, the floor is yours. You have five minutes.

[Tamara Vrooman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Vancouver Airport Authority]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I am pleased to join the committee remotely from my office at the Vancouver International Airport, where we're located on the traditional and unceded territory of the Musqueam people. YVR has a deep relationship with Musqueam through our sustainability and friendship agreement, and I, too, would like to pay my respects to elders past and present.

Thank you very much to the committee for inviting me to participate in this important study and to talk a little bit about the work that we've been doing at the Vancouver International Airport.

YVR has demonstrated a clear commitment to accessibility for many years. We are the first airport in North America to voluntarily have our entire airport space audited and rated by a group of independent accessibility experts through the Rick Hansen Foundation's building accessibility program.

Going beyond ramps and lifts, the audit identified improvements in everything from the colour palette of floor tiles to the sound barriers needed in walls and the widths of corridors and counters. YVR accepted 100% of the recommendations, and they have all been implemented. As a result, in 2018 we became the first airport in the world to achieve gold accessibility building-rating standards from the RHF program, something we have maintained at YVR each and every year since.

I am pleased to say that we didn't stop there. We continue to look for ways to improve our facilities to ensure that people can move independently and with dignity throughout our airport. For example, all of our new private, single-stall washrooms also include adult-size changing benches and the latest technology for accessible features. Most recently, we were the first airport to include key boarding announcements in sign language at all of our boarding gates. With the built environment at YVR, we have gone beyond and designed important supports with accessibility consultants, community partners and customers.

We know that buildings alone cannot make travel accessible. It also requires inclusive processes and trained staff to ensure that the experience of transiting through an airport is supportive and seamless.

Travelling through an airport can be stressful at the best of times. Imagine what it must be like for people who are sound or light sensitive, who are neurodiverse, or who are on the autism spectrum. Through YVR's partnership with the Canucks Autism Network, we organize dedicated tours, and to date, these have allowed over 400 families to practice the entire pre-flight process with us in a safe and supportive environment. Having practised it, families tell us it gives them the confidence that when they do travel, often for the first time as a family, they know what to expect and how and where YVR offers supports along the way.

As we say at YVR, running an airport is a team sport. Each and every day, 26,000 people work at YVR. To create a truly accessible airport, our team members at multiple levels need to be trained and ready to serve the needs of diverse passengers. Therefore, through a partnership with the Pacific Autism Family Network and through a partnership with the work you've already heard about through the Canadian Airports Council, YVR is providing training for everyone from our fire and rescue team to our guest-experience staff and our building maintenance and cleaning staff to ensure that we have the skills and expertise to support passengers whenever and wherever they may need it.

Finally, as one of our region's largest employers, we also know that we can create meaningful employment for people with diverse abilities. In October 2023, we opened the Paper Planes Cafe here in the terminal in partnership with the Pacific Autism Family Network. Through the café, we offer individuals with neurodiverse needs up to six months of training, and then we support them in their job search in the community. The first group of trainees has completed the program and gone on to secure employment. Now we have a waiting list of new applicants.

Our journey to become a truly accessible airport started with our building, quickly moved to our staff and the services we provide, and finally extended to our significant role as an employer. However, despite all of that, we believe that we can and need to do more.

Over the last 18 months, YVR completed a comprehensive audit of our full passenger experience. We partnered with the accessibility group Return on Disability to purchase airline tickets for over 40 individuals with accessibility needs to track the entire experience from booking a ticket through to travel. As a result, we have identified several opportunities that YVR will explore in the future.

For example, we're working collaboratively with partners to create a seamless experience from curb to gate. An immediate opportunity is for YVR to leverage our technology to track wheelchair flow and maximize availability in the airport. We're also simplifying our wayfinding and signage, and we're exploring digital wayfinding and mobile navigation tools.

Finally, we're working with the airport commercial and airline partners to better inform people about the range of accessibility services available at our airport.

As I conclude, I'd like to thank the committee. These discussions help us explore new ideas to ensure Canada's air transportation system remains accessible and continues to improve. I look forward to your questions.

Thank you very much,

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Ms. Vrooman.

We'll begin our line of questioning in this round with Mr. Strahl.

Mr. Strahl, I'm going to give you five minutes. We're going to have to cut back the time to make sure we can get through all of this.

The floor is yours for five minutes, sir.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Pasher, and the two biggest airports in the country. I'm glad that you're here to talk about your built environment. These are obviously world-class facilities that have world-class facilities for people with accessibility challenges.

I'm interested to hear perhaps from Ms. Pasher. You mentioned the number of airports you represent. I am glad that YVR and YYZ are here. I am interested to hear about the smaller regional airports that don't have the same level of financing or the same programming ability.

What is the Airports Council doing to ensure that a passenger who isn't travelling through Vancouver International or Pearson is getting the same level of care, respect and service at an airport that perhaps doesn't have the same level of resources?

[Monette Pasher]

Thanks for that question. I'm happy to take that on.

Many small airports across the country, and regional airports, are part of the accessibility regulations. Some of the new regulations that rolled out need to be implemented by June. Many of our airports have already taken these measures and implemented them—things like pet relief areas, hearing loops, signage in the airport, implementing change tables where they can.

I think the biggest challenge we see for some of the small airports is that we're looking at infrastructure that's 60 years old. Some of our airports are municipal airports. It can be more challenging to make those infrastructure changes. I think many of them are adopting the technology, and the programs and the signage and the things that we can do operationally within the airport, but the infrastructure piece is a challenge.

To get to that Rick Hansen gold-certified level is quite difficult when you're talking about an old building and needing to change many things about the structure—that's cost. I think that would be probably the biggest barrier for small airports. I think you'd be surprised to see the number of initiatives they've taken on—from Autism Aviators to the Sunflower program. There are so many, and they really are downsizing them and making them fit.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Thank you.

I want to go quickly to Ms. Vrooman.

The airport I travel through the most is yours. We often hear about luggage or handling—in this case mobility aids. I assume that is a shared responsibility between the airlines and the airport. Am I correct in that?

Could you tell me, from the time someone who requires a mobility aid wants to get on an aircraft, what role does YVR play in that? How are you working to ensure that things that are not simply luggage, but necessary for the respect and dignity of that person with a disability get on to the aircraft? We've heard even today of some unacceptable examples.

What specific steps have you taken to upgrade your performance in that regard?

[Tamara Vrooman]

Thank you very much for that question.

You are correct that it is a shared accountability.

It works this way at the airport: The airport provides the infrastructure that takes the baggage, when you drop it off, through to the apron, where it's then picked up by the baggage and ground handlers and loaded onto the aircraft. On the way out, when baggage is unloaded, it's the responsibility of the baggage handlers—who are contracted by airlines—to take that baggage from the aircraft and load it through onto the carousel.

In this case, it's not baggage at all. As we heard, it's significant personal mobility aids. Often they will be transported independently, and not put through the regular baggage system, by the airlines themselves.

What we have found—as you can hear—is that there are a lot of different hand-offs and processes that will work outside of the regular way that baggage works at our airport.

I'm very pleased to say that our performance on the outbound baggage is that 99% of the time or sometimes even more, all of that baggage gets to the right place at the right time.

What we need to do is make sure we use data to connect and to make sure that the irregular bags that we see going through actually make their way onto the aircraft.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Ms. Vrooman.

Next, we'll go to Ms. Murray.

The floor is yours. You have five minutes, please.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Thank you very much.

I welcome the testimony of our guests today.

I want to start with Ms. Pasher.

We heard earlier that there is a place where there are breakdowns in the processes for supporting people with disabilities. That is in the hand-off between the airport authority's area of responsibility and the airline's area of responsibility. Ms. Cadieux, Canada's chief accessibility officer, confirmed that there's not a seamless continuity there.

Ms. Pasher, how does the Canadian Airports Council help to identify and reduce the gaps in the hand-off between the airports and the airlines?

[Monette Pasher]

Thank you for the question.

Certainly that is an issue that we've been talking about quite a bit.

With these hand-offs, really the airports are responsible from the curb to the check-in counter. Then the airlines and their partners are responsible from the check-in counter to the plane. When you look at that, really the north star would be a seamless passenger experience. That's what we would like to see.

I think there are many ways that we could deliver that. That's part of what we're looking at now through pilots. Mr. Strahl mentioned Europe. We're looking at everything to see what those options and best practices are. I think, as Ms. Cadieux said, there are challenges everywhere in this delivery.

We need to look at the best practices and what's working well here now. Pearson has a seamless experience that does work well.

What can we learn from our own environment? What can we learn from other environments in order to make this better? I think continuous improvement is always the goal.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Thank you.

I have a question for Mr. Minocher.

You talked about how the goal of the GTAA is to attract and employ dedicated people, inclusive of people with disabilities.

I've been seized with the fact that the federal government has some clear targets for increasing the number of people with disabilities who are employed by the government. I know Ms. Cadieux was very much part of that. The rationale is that if people with that experience are designing and developing the solutions for others with disabilities, then we will have better outcomes.

Does the GTAA have a target number of people with disabilities to be hired?

[Kurush Minocher]

We're constantly increasing across the board the number of individuals with disabilities who are brought on board into the organization and across the airport community.

Specific to designing programs that support the travel experience, we work directly with individuals with lived experience. Sometimes, they are employees. Many times, they are individuals through the communities or through various advocacy groups, like the Canadian National Institute for the Blind or the Canadian Hearing Society.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

I acknowledge that not every job can be done with every potential type of disability, but in the federal government, it is clearly a pathway to better addressing accessibility issues to have people with disabilities who are doing the work in that way.

Ms. Vrooman, it's great to see you here today. As a Vancouver airport user, congratulations on achieving a gold accessibility rating and on the supports for neurodiverse people.

I'd like to ask you the same question I asked Mr. Minocher. Do you have actual targets to increase the number of people with a disability whom you hire for the Vancouver Airport Authority to bring that first-hand understanding and context into the work your team does for passengers with disabilities?

[Tamara Vrooman]

Thank you very much for that question.

The short answer is yes. We attempt to hire a percentage the same as or greater than is present in the population.

One of the general challenges, though, is not everybody—particularly those with less visible disabilities—self-reports, so we're also creating tools to allow people to self-identify in diverse ways so that we can track the percentage of people we have employed at the airport.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Ms. Vrooman.

Mr. Barsalou‑Duval, you now have the floor for five minutes.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The witnesses on this second panel represent various airports. I thank them for being with us.

My first question will be for Ms. Pasher from the Canadian Airports Council. This question was actually raised earlier today.

Ms. Pasher, to what extent is there functional, collaborative communication with the various players in the field when it comes to reporting special needs for people with disabilities?

We know that people enter this information when they buy tickets from airlines. However, to what extent does the airport receive information about the number of people with special needs who need to be at the airport that day?

Is this information made available to you, or are the airlines the only ones to have it?

[Monette Pasher]

When someone's booking a ticket and after booking their ticket—the day of travel—they can go on the websites of airports to see what services are available, and they can plan their needs that way.

In some cases, a passenger can arrive and, if they would like, they can have curbside assistance. Some of our airports have 24‑7 access. Others have an intercom through which you can get support. The support then comes out to meet you at the curbside. They'll take you in to see the airline. At the airline, you check in and then you're moving through the rest of the system with them.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

As I understand it, there is no communication system between airlines and airports to inform you in advance of the number of people with special needs so that you can plan, for example, for the staff or infrastructure required. These people must communicate with the airport in advance, or else be taken care of using a system that exists on site.

Do you think that if there were such a system for exchanging data or important information like this, it would help you provide better care, or at least better support for people with disabilities?

[Monette Pasher]

A passenger books the ticket with the air carrier, so I think that is where...when they show up at the airport, there is a system in place.

Would more data sharing and information between parties be helpful? I think it's always helpful. We heard in the last testimony whether data would be helpful in this regard. I think it would be.

For smaller airports, where they don't see the accessible needs of passengers quite as frequently as they do at the large airports, it operates a bit differently. In those communities, usually, people reach out in advance. We really don't get many complaints at the smaller airports. There is that personalized service, and they're used to what is in place, so they're aware.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

My next question is about training.

In your opening remarks, you mentioned that training services are offered by airports to airport staff, which seems quite natural to me. You also mentioned that training was given to people who look after passengers on planes, for example flight attendants—I don't know if that's the right title.

As I understand it, airports provide training for the airline staff. Do the airports simply provide additional training?

[Monette Pasher]

Thank you for asking that question, because I think that's very important to distinguish.

Our airports are only responsible for our airport training and the training of airport authority staff. Airlines are responsible for training airline staff, mobility handlers and baggage handlers in a number of different aspects of our environment.

What you were referring to would be for the airlines and their specific training, which would be different for the airports and the airport employees.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Thank you.

Earlier, people mentioned that there was another system, elsewhere in the world, in terms of how the takeover works. As I understand it, airport assistance stops when the passenger checks in with the airline, which is quite early in the process. It seems to me that check-in takes place at the beginning of the process, i.e., on arrival at the airport. So the role of airports is quite limited.

Elsewhere in the world, airports have a greater responsibility. In fact, care begins when passengers arrive and ends when they board.

If this were an obligation, would airports be able to meet it?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Ms. Pasher, I would ask you to give a brief response, as the member has very little speaking time left.

[Monette Pasher]

Sure.

You know, airlines are responsible for checking in their guests. Airlines are responsible for moving those guests through that environment.

If there are other countries doing this differently, they're likely doing it with third parties working hand in hand with airlines. It is airlines that move their passengers through the airport ecosystem. That would be our experience of what's happening elsewhere.