Transport Committee on Jan. 12th, 2023

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

That was after you had already resolved the situation on your own. Is that correct?

[Len Corrado]

Yes.

Our operation had stabilized, and we had recovered from the various events in play.

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

You had the conversation with him, but did you ever have a physical meeting with him about this grave situation that Canadians faced?

[Len Corrado]

We had a virtual meeting with the minister on the 5th, and he expressed his concerns about the situation and our performance. We discussed, as I presented today, the various challenges we faced.

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Did he provide any solutions to you about how you were going to deal with these 7,000 complaints?

I'm certain that he asked about the number of Canadians affected by this very terrible situation.

[Len Corrado]

I don't have the notes from the meeting in front of me, so I'm not going to get into the specifics of that, but the minister did suggest that if there was any way that the government could help to move things along to avoid this, he offered his support.

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

So you would have to get back to the minister about how the government should help. The minister did not propose any solutions to you about how the government could help?

[Len Corrado]

He did not at that time.

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Did the minister contact your organization prior to this holiday season?

This was a unique travel season. We'd dealt with two years of travel disruption due to COVID, and Canadians were in high anticipation of travelling. Did the minister reach out to you prior to the holiday season to inquire about anything that you needed to make sure that this would be a smooth travel season and to anticipate some of the barriers and blocks that could have happened? Did you have that contact from the minister?

[Len Corrado]

Various parts of my leadership team are in contact with various parts of Transport Canada and other government agencies. I can't speak at this point to whether those engagements happened, although I'm sure that they did at some level.

I personally didn't speak to the minister, but I'm sure that many of the government departments were discussing this with my leadership team.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Dr. Lewis.

Unfortunately, there's no time remaining.

Next we have Mr. Chahal.

Mr. Chahal, the floor is yours for five minutes.

[George Chahal, Liberal, Calgary Skyview, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

I want to thank all of the witnesses for joining us today and for providing testimony on this important topic.

I represent a riding in northeast Calgary, with the Calgary International Airport and thousands of employees who work at the airport, and thousands of new Canadians who make Calgary Skyview their home. This holiday season was a complete disaster across the country for my constituents and for Canadians.

I appreciate the opening testimony. Air Canada mentioned that they had built in significant resiliency preparing. I want to start with the 15 wide-body aircraft.

I want to start with Mr. Corrado. Did you build in a similar type of resiliency to avoid disruptions and impacts?

[Len Corrado]

We had some resiliency in the system. However, as I mentioned in my opening testimony, having to juggle the schedule to resolve some of our staffing challenges meant that that resiliency came down, but then that resiliency was even further eroded.

When we talk about events in Calgary, we had a couple of airplanes sitting in Calgary because they couldn't land in Vancouver because of weather. Now you have two airplanes and six sets of crews out of rotation with no way to move them. That resiliency gets eaten up quite quickly.

[George Chahal, Liberal, Calgary Skyview, AB]

Mr. Gibbons from WestJet, can you answer the same question?

[Andrew Gibbons]

[Inaudible—Editor] operational considerations on the resiliency question.

[Capt Scott Wilson]

I'm happy to answer the question. Thank you.

As it was mentioned earlier on, when we take a look at building toward our peak season, we take a look at the schedule we intend to operate. We take a look at the fleet, we take a look at the crew and we take a look at all aspects. We build resiliency into the operation, so that we have the flex required. We had spare aircraft and we had no shortage of operating crew.

In Calgary, in particular, our primary issue with the weather wasn't what we saw in Vancouver and Toronto. It was the tail end of almost three weeks of extreme cold, and that takes its own toll on the fleet, in particular. From this perspective, we saw higher requirements to use our spare aircraft for recovery, maintenance issues and things like that.

We had strong resiliency built into our network schedule.

[George Chahal, Liberal, Calgary Skyview, AB]

I've heard everyone this morning talking about how they support the APPR and would like to see the regulations strengthened for the airlines.

Maybe I'll start with Air Canada, then go to WestJet and Sunwing. Do you believe that we should further strengthen these regulations, as you stated, to all industries?

If you support the regulations, why are you taking the government to court regarding the APPR?

Let's start with Air Canada, go to WestJet and then go to Sunwing.

Please be very quick.

[David Rheault]

Our position before the committee is that yes, the Air Passenger Protection Regulations need to be reviewed, but the committee should take into account that there are a range of stakeholders in the air transport chain. Every stakeholder has roles and responsibilities to ensure that passengers, our customers, get good service.

At the moment, the regulations only apply to airlines, which are the only ones with obligations and service standards to comply with. Our position is that the regulations need to be strengthened to take into account all stakeholders in air transport.

[George Chahal, Liberal, Calgary Skyview, AB]

You support further strengthening and, possibly, additional fines and penalties if they're brought forward.

[David Rheault]

No. What we have said is that we support the idea of reviewing the regulations so that the review includes the responsibility of everyone involved in air travel.

The current regulations have very high penalties when compared to those imposed by other countries. For example, in the United States, there is no penalty or compensation for delay or cancellation. Penalties for denied boarding are up to three times higher in Canada than in Europe and are the highest in the world to our knowledge. Many voices are being heard...

[George Chahal, Liberal, Calgary Skyview, AB]

If I can, I'll go to WestJet for a comment on that, as my time is running out.

I think Canadians who have faced disruptions would disagree that the penalties are too much. I don't think that's a consideration.

WestJet, please go ahead.

[Andrew Gibbons]

The issue at the core of our representation today and last month, Mr. Chahal, is that there are only penalties for one group. The minister has even said at committee that your delay or cancellation in Canada can be the result of many different groups. It could be because the customs hall was too full and the plane had to sit on the tarmac. It could be because Nav Canada had a staffing issue. It could be because of an airport failure.

This is not about a blame game. It is simply about improving the system overall and making sure that there's full transparency, so that the Canadian traveller understands what is the root cause of their delay or cancellation. What we've asked for—and what we submitted to this committee in late November as part of our recommendations—is that the priority be shared accountability.

We do not believe the priority right now should be additional penalties on the only group that has any accountability and regulations that govern it. It should be to apply them equally to everyone as the top priority.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Gibbons.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chahal.

Ms. Vignola, you now have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

My first question is for the three carriers; please answer quickly as I only have two and a half minutes. I would like to know how many flights have been cancelled, not only because of the storm, but also for safety reasons due to lack of staff.

Let's start with Mr. Corrado.

[Len Corrado]

Through the period of the holiday season, from December 15 to the end of December 31, we had 67 flight cancellations.