(Ottawa) 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 are not enough place in the terminal to contain the queues, deplores the Canadian Airports Council.
Posted at 2:18 p.m.
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 Mme 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.me Pasher, especially since these tests are rarely demanded in communities in general.
“Resuming regular travel with these health protocols and these tests cannot coexist without significant pressure on our system,” said Ms.me pasher.
The government is aware that long queues at airports are frustrating passengers, reads a statement from the federal Department of Transport.
“The measures currently in place are based on the recommendations of public health experts and aim to protect all Canadians. We will continue to adjust our measures based on recommendations from experts,” Transport Canada said.
Ottawa says it is in contact with the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority with the aim of assigning more officers to checkpoints and recruiting more.
However, the federal government does not intend to ask air carriers to reduce the number of scheduled flights.
From 1er as of May 7, 1.3% of the 1,920 travelers who have been selected for testing for COVID-19 have tested positive. By way of comparison, the positivity rate was 3.46% for the period from 1er to April 9, but a lot more testing was being done at that time.
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 (scientific) advice and acts on it, but it hasn’t shared any of that 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.
On Monday before a House of Commons committee, many players in the travel industry pleaded for further relaxation.
“The measures are hurting our economy and affecting our reputation as a destination of choice for tourism, international conferences and sporting events in the eyes of international travellers”, argued the senior director of transport, infrastructure and policy Board of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Robin Guy.
Witnesses called on Ottawa to review the measures in place at the borders and remove those that are no longer needed.