While they are understaffed in the face of the huge influx of passengers, airline employees are at their wit’s end at Montreal-Trudeau airport. All this for wages sometimes barely above the minimum wage. At Air Canada, unions and staff members believe that the carrier has not done everything in its power to deal with this foreseeable crisis.
After landing in Montreal, passengers must regularly wait in the plane, waiting on the tarmac, before the aircraft has access to a disembarkation gate. “Last week, I parked a plane more than three hours after it landed,” recalls a chief station attendant for Air Canada, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals from his employer.
Station attendants are those who load and unload luggage and merchandise on aircraft, carry out de-icing operations in winter and guide or tow aircraft to parking stands for passenger boarding and disembarkation, notably.
“We often find ourselves half as many doing the job, a single team of three people instead of six. So it can take 1h30 instead of 45 minutes”, explains the chief station attendant. Added to this is the fact that a large part of the staff, recently hired, is not yet very effective.
Stress, difficulty taking breaks, pressure to work overtime, increased risk of injury in this very physically demanding job: “morale is low”, observes this chief station attendant, and many people take sickness. “You don’t want to sacrifice yourself when it hasn’t been handled well by the company and the top executives have gotten millions in bonuses,” he said. He regrets that Air Canada does nothing to encourage and thank employees who work like crazy.
Equipment is also missing for Air Canada station attendants to do their job effectively, says Guillaume Lingat, general president of District 140 of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, who represents them. This is also what the chief station attendant observes. “Tractors to push planes, conveyors to load luggage, we lack them. When you get to your shift and you don’t have one, you have to wait,” he laments.
Insults and lack of sleep
Customer service agents are struggling to take their breaks, says Benoît Lapointe, Unifor’s bargaining committee representative for Air Canada. In this sector, where employees inform, register and board passengers, there is also a serious lack of manpower. Added to this are the sometimes violent recriminations of dissatisfied customers.
The situation for flight attendants is hardly better. “We are insulted, hit, spit on, pushed. There are flight attendants crying, some on the verge of burnout, ”describes one of them, who also requested anonymity for fear of reprisals.
“We don’t want to see our passengers being treated the way they are, but we often don’t have the tools and information needed to help them. Why is the plane late, what happens with the luggage? We don’t know,” he said.
Flight attendants have to contend with a lack of time to eat or go to the bathroom, a shortage of hotel rooms that force them to often sleep at the airport, and chaotic flight schedules.
A shortage of managers is also rife, as airlines have encouraged many departures during the pandemic, points out John Gradek, an aviation management specialist at McGill University. “Managers do not have the necessary experience to act in times of crisis”, he analyzes.
Recruitment efforts
Requested by The duty, Air Canada did not wish to grant an interview on the current situation. By email, however, the company recalled that the chaos in air transport is global. Some of the delays and confusion are due to the domino effect of situations unfolding at other airports. The carrier, which announced the cancellation of around 15% of flights in July and August, also says it has redoubled its efforts in terms of recruitment and training for all job categories, like other companies. of this sector in Montreal. He also points out that he has taken measures to increase the remuneration of certain trades, in particular that of ramp agents who load and unload customers’ luggage. Air Canada has 32,000 employees, almost as many as in 2019, and claims to ensure “80% of [son] summer timetable 2019”.
However, several unions and employees believe that Air Canada took too long to act. “We saw it coming this spring and we thought we were going to hit a wall. As early as April, we had suggested reducing the number of flights to properly provide the main flights,” says Benoît Lapointe.
In his opinion, recruitment was done too late, many in March and April. “They didn’t want a surplus of employees, so they waited too long. But it takes up to several months to train a customer service agent to be fully functional,” said the union representative. Obtaining security clearances for some new employees, including station attendants, from Transport Canada can also take months.
Unattractive conditions
In addition, wages and working conditions are still not sufficient to attract and retain workers, insist the unions. Station attendants have been entitled to a substantial increase over the past year, reaching $21.11 per hour on entry. However, these conditions had stagnated for years. Guillaume Lingat remembers being hired at $11.64 in 2000, and the starting salary was $13.50 until the fall of 2021.
Mr. Lingat also asserts that the vast majority of baggage handlers leave the company after less than six months. The conditions would still not measure up to other competitors.
Among customer service agents, the starting salary has not been improved, and is still at $16.56 per hour. It’s cheap to run around and get yelled at by customers, believes Olivier Carrière, assistant to the Quebec director at Unifor. “We are faced with companies that have always granted the minimum possible, thinking they have access to cheap workers, but people are now aware that they can earn a living with more dignity,” comments Mr. Carrière.
The problem will therefore take time to resolve, believe most observers. In the meantime, employees and travelers are going through difficult times. Professor John Gradek also believes that the managers of Air Canada, whose head office is very close to the airport, should come to the aid of the customer service agents to demonstrate their empathy and their desire to help clients.
“We need a more active presence of Air Canada executives to explain to Canadians what solutions they recommend,” adds the expert. But we don’t see them in front of the media, and that’s a shame. »