There are so many flights arriving at Canadian airports from abroad that travelers sometimes have to wait on the plane for over an hour after landing because there is not enough space in the plane. terminal to contain queues, deplores the Canadian Airports Council.
The organization blames pandemic health measures for the situation and asks Ottawa to eliminate random testing and public health questions asked at customs.
These additional procedures mean it takes four times longer than before the pandemic to welcome travelers to Canada, said the Airports Council’s acting president, Monette Pasher.
These additional measures did not cause problems when people traveled little, she said, but now it has become truly problematic.
“As we resume our regular travel, we find that we clearly cannot have these public health requirements and tests at our borders,” she said.
The situation is particularly critical at the country’s largest airport. At Toronto’s Pearson International Airport, passengers on 120 flights were held in their planes on Sunday while they waited their turn to line up at customs.
This wait is sometimes 20 minutes, but can sometimes reach more than an hour, argued Ms. Pasher.
Current terminals are simply not designed to make going through customs such a time-consuming process, she said: there isn’t the space required to accommodate all those waiting travelers.
The air terminal is also not the right place to take COVID-19 tests, Ms. Pasher argued, especially since such tests are rarely demanded in communities at large.
“Resuming regular travel with these health protocols and these tests cannot coexist without a significant strain on our system,” Pasher said.
The federal health and transportation ministers did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the situation on Tuesday.
Sanitary measures less severe than before
Pandemic health measures were put in place and then abolished over time and successive waves of COVID-19 in Canada. Right now, these travel measures are the least restrictive we’ve seen in months — properly vaccinated travelers are only randomly tested.
Still, the requirements are not in line with those of peer countries, said Conservative transport spokeswoman Melissa Lantsman. She wants to know why the Canadian government acts on different opinions than other countries.
“We do take the government at its word that it receives advice [scientifiques] and act accordingly, but he hasn’t shared any of this with the Canadian public,” she said.
Lengthy airport delays are sending a negative message to travelers and the MP worries about the impact it will have on Canadian tourism as the industry struggles to get back on its feet this season after the slump pandemic. “It sends the signal to go somewhere else, that we’re not open for business,” she said.