Transport committee  I think it's a good start. A lot of work is going to come out of that, because, as you said, it's complex. Certainly, better coordination among the partners will result in a better experience for customers with disabilities. I firmly believe that.

Transport committee  First, in terms of mobility aids, what we've done recently is change our policy. We are allowing as many mobility aids as we can into the cabin, so the customers have them close by. That's in place right now. Second, we built a technology application through which customers can monitor where their mobility aid is and ensure it's in the cargo bay.

Transport committee  There are a couple of aspects. You're absolutely right. Outside of Canada, everything is third party contractors. We've strengthened the contract with our third party contractors so there are clear standards to perform. Just to provide some insight, I will say that with regard to that situation in Las Vegas, that contractor—not just for that mistake they made but also for others—was terminated, and we brought in a new contractor.

Transport committee  Thank you for the question. It's a very interesting one. Internally, certainly, our senior leadership group, including me, gets data on a regular basis on how we're doing in terms of the initiatives being put in place, adherence to those initiatives and, of course, the number of complaints, which is hopefully declining as a result of these initiatives.

Transport committee  I'll address the second part first. Certainly, we're very proud to support both official languages and to be the only carrier in Canada that provides services in both official languages. This area, obviously, is very important to us, as is accessibility, but they are different.

Transport committee  I think that's a worthwhile venture to explore. Obviously, there would have to be some conditions around this. How is the data put together? It has to be consistent, not just across the airline industry but also across other industries that provide customers with disabilities the ability to travel.

Transport committee  Again, thank you for the question. I don't have the exact details with respect to how many training staff have self-declared disabilities. I can tell you that overall at Air Canada roughly 2.2% of our staff of 39,000 employees have a self-declared disability. We think that's under-reported.

Transport committee  Here at Air Canada we have a very strong DEI program that looks to improve hiring practices to ensure that we have strong representation of all minority groups, including those with disabilities. I don't have all the statistics right in front of me. We do measure ourselves against the greater air transportation industry on all of the DEI dimensions.

Transport committee  Thank you for the question. Certainly from a customer perspective, we are looking at two areas. First, obviously, is the number of complaints as a percentage of the number of customers travelling with disabilities and continuing to improve that year over year. The second area we are exploring is looking at doing some surveys of our customers with disabilities.

Transport committee  Again, we've put together a committee of four well-respected disability groups: Barrier Free Canada, Brain Injury Canada, Spinal Cord Injury Canada, and Kéroul. Certainly, we're willing to speak to other groups as well, whether it's me or Kerianne, who is obviously our leader in this area, as our director of accessibility.

Transport committee  That's a difficult question for me to answer. Again, I'm looking at it from Air Canada's perspective. We're committed to this. You've heard about all the actions we're putting in place and our commitment to continue to improve. Hopefully, other airlines follow our lead; we're certainly willing to share our processes with them, as well.

Transport committee  I think there's value. There's always value in sharing information among participants, not just airlines but other modes of transportation as well. We can all learn from each other. Although I believe this important area has a very high awareness level and will continue to maintain that high awareness level, again, I think that sharing information, processes and lessons learned is always a positive thing.

Transport committee  The case you're referring to goes back to 2016, when Mr. Rose wanted to go to Cleveland, and we couldn't fit his wheelchair in the small plane we had at that time. We wanted to accommodate Mr. Rose. We actually worked with him to see if we could put him in a limo to another airport.

Transport committee  We want to be transparent with the facts that we have—that was one of the purposes and one of the objectives of coming to the committee—to anyone we speak to about this very important situation. I think that right after I presented the numbers, my next comment was that I am not diminishing this issue.

Transport committee  In 2023, we made roughly $2 billion.