Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank the committee for allowing me to appear here today. My name is Len Corrado, and I'm the president of Sunwing Airlines. I'm joined today by Andrew Dawson, president of Sunwing Vacations.
Let me begin by apologizing that we failed to deliver to the level that we had expected to and that Canadians had expected from us over this holiday season. We had planned that this holiday season would be a return to normal in a postpandemic world for our flying program. We built a robust plan to meet the high demand for travel to sun destinations. While many of our customers enjoyed their holidays with minimal disruption, we had some failures in execution, for which we are very, very sorry.
Three primary issues caused disruption to our schedules. First, several storms severely impacted our operations across the country. This included the virtual shutdown of Vancouver's airport and caused major delays in Ontario and Quebec. These weather events impacted not only our ability to service our customers flying through those airports but also our ability to position the necessary crew to service our own operations at other departure locations due to the cancellation of flights by other carriers impacted by these events.
The second issue was staffing. In anticipation of a busy winter season, Sunwing began recruiting pilots last spring. We went from a low of 40 pilots during the pandemic to over 475 pilots in preparation for our winter flying. Sunwing also applied to hire 63 foreign pilots on a temporary basis to supplement our crewing levels. These pilots would have been based in Regina and Saskatoon, where we run service only during the winter months, as we have since 2007. Unfortunately, our application was unexpectedly rejected. We took action and made alternative arrangements. These included subservicing aircraft into our schedule to make more of our own crew available, rebidding and rebuilding the pilot schedule and bringing subserviced aircraft specifically into that market.
Third, these challenges were compounded by airport infrastructure issues, such as a malfunctioning baggage belt system at Pearson, de-icing fluid shortages in Vancouver and various other issues that affected several carriers.
I would also like to take a moment to share features of our unique business model. Among our customers, 95% are leisure travellers who have purchased their flight as part of a fixed-duration vacation package. You may recall that earlier this summer, other carriers experienced operational challenges as they ramped up to their peak operational season. Uniquely, Sunwing's peak flying occurs in the winter. Our ramp-up coincided with the first of the storms. Unlike traditional airlines, we don't have the flexibility in our network to adjust our schedule and shift passenger itineraries. We almost always have customers waiting in a southern destination with a very fixed timeline to return to Canada, and often on routes where alternate flights do not readily exist.
While many of these factors were out of our control, I want to be clear with this committee and Canadians that our team immediately jumped into action to try to make things right for our customers. We worked around the clock to minimize customer disruptions while recovering our schedule. We provided customers with hotel accommodations, food and beverages, and local support at destinations, all at our expense, regardless of the reason for delay.
With respect to compensation, I want to assure committee members that we fully understand our obligations under Canada's APPR, and we will fully comply with these regulations. We are actively accepting claims for compensation under the APPR. Customers may submit their claims for review at our website.
With respect to passenger communications, we have immediately implemented changes to address some of the technical issues with flight alert notifications to improve communications with our customers.
With all this said, the bottom line is this: We know we could have done better. When even one customer is let down by their experience with our airline, I consider that a failure. We'd like to reassure committee members and Canadians that we are committed to providing the quality of service and experience that they've come to expect from us over the last 20 years.
Thank you for your time. I would be happy to answer any questions you may have.