Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good afternoon, honourable members.
This year marks CATSA’s 20th anniversary of operations. As you're likely aware, CATSA is a Crown corporation responsible for security screening services within Canada’s civil aviation system. We're regulated by Transport Canada. CATSA is accountable to Parliament through the Minister of Transport, and we're funded by parliamentary appropriations.
We operate our mandate through a third party screening contractor model. The contractors employ the screening officers directly, while CATSA, together with the screening contractors, ensures that critical elements of the transportation system are secure, from passenger and hold baggage screening to the screening of non-passengers at designated airports in Canada.
We've recently seen the pent-up demand for air travel materialize at airports much earlier than I think many anticipated. As such, there were some challenges in servicing demand, particularly in early May. This follows two tumultuous years for the civil aviation industry.
CATSA and its screening contractors have been targeting the hiring of 1,000 screening officers this year, in addition to the over 1,200 screening officers who were recalled in the fall of 2021. I'm pleased to report that despite those challenges in May, and despite the labour market challenges that continue to persist, we are on track to meet those targets.
I'm also happy to report that over the last three weeks CATSA has met its government-funded service level target of screening 85% of passengers in 15 minutes or less across the system. We've exceeded that over the last three weeks, but we still have work to do.
While screening contractors have been working to increase staffing levels, they're not immune to the recruitment challenges experienced by the broader commercial aviation industry and, indeed, by many industries across Canada. CATSA aims to achieve or exceed the wait times service level as established by the funding provided by the Government of Canada, where, as I mentioned, 85% of all passengers wait 15 minutes or less at class I airports.
Thank you once again for the opportunity to speak to you today.
Ms. Fitchett and I are available to answer questions from committee members.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.