Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Oommen, for appearing before us today.
Like many Canadians, I spent a bit of time in our airports this summer when travelling across this country. I met a lot of Canadians who were going on vacation for the first time in a couple of years and who maybe hadn't travelled at all throughout Canada during the pandemic and were really excited to be on their vacation.
As I was in an airport a number of times, I can think of one time in particular when about three-quarters of the flights on the board were either cancelled or delayed. There was nowhere to sit, not a chair to be found anywhere in the airport terminal. People were lying on the cement ground, sleeping on the ground, and there were long lineups to get food or drinks as they were waiting for hours and hours for their delayed flights. There was a lot of frustration among Canadians trying to travel.
I understand that there were probably a lot of complaints that came in to the agency. I heard that there was a backlog before summer travel of over 15,000 complaints to the CTA, before the big travel boom. I believe I have read—you may have stated it somewhere in the press—that there was an expectation of perhaps another 15,000 complaints by the end of this year.
I'm just wondering if you could update the committee on the current number of backlogged complaints at this point.