Air Canada says it’s apologizing and making a number of changes internally to improve the way it treats passengers with disabilities after several high-profile incidents — including one involving a passenger who had to drag himself off a plane — led to a meeting with federal ministers in Ottawa this week.
The airline said Thursday it will be updating the boarding process and changing the way it stores mobility aids like wheelchairs to ensure customers with disabilities can get on and off the plane safely, as well as updating its training procedures for thousands of employees.
“Air Canada recognizes the challenges customers with disabilities encounter when they fly and accepts its responsibility to provide convenient and consistent service so that flying with us becomes easier. Sometimes we do not meet this commitment, for which we offer a sincere apology,” CEO Michael Rousseau wrote in a statement.
“As our customers with disabilities tell us, the most important thing is that we continuously improve in the future.”
The changes come after four people with disabilities spoke publicly this year about their “dehumanizing” experiences flying with Air Canada. Their stories included experiences dragging themselves off a plane, being dropped by staff, having their wheelchair left behind and having their ventilator bumped and disconnected during a transfer between wheelchairs — ordeals that advocates have described as all too familiar.
Rodney Hodgins, who has cerebral palsy, was forced to drag himself off an Air Canada flight in Las Vegas in August after being told wheelchair assistance wasn’t available.
B.C.-based comedian Ryan Lachance, who has quad spastic cerebral palsy, said he was dropped and injured by Air Canada staff while attempting to disembark a flight in Vancouver in May.
Couple describes ‘dehumanizing’ experience with Air Canada
Featured VideoRodney Hodgins says he was forced to drag himself off an Air Canada flight after the airline failed to provide the wheelchair assistance he requires.
Toronto’s Alessia Di Virgilio, who uses a power wheelchair, had her ventilator disconnected and a lift fall on her head as Air Canada staff struggled to transfer her between the aircraft and her wheelchair during a recent flight to Charlottetown.
Air Canada CEO meets with minister
Federal Transport Minister Pablo Rodriguez summoned airline representatives to Parliament Hill this week to “present a plan” to address its treatment toward customers with disabilities.
Rousseau was present at the meeting on Thursday, along with Air Canada vice-presidents.
In media scrums after the meeting, Rodriguez said he told Rousseau the airline’s current plan “wasn’t working.”
“We told Air Canada it was unacceptable what happened, and they agreed with us,” he said.
“We made that very clear to their CEO,” said Kamal Khera, minister of Diversity, Inclusion and Persons with Disabilities, who also attended the meeting.
“Not only do airlines need to be held accountable, they need to do a lot better, and they need to put forward a comprehensive plan in the short term and the long term.”
Rodriguez and Khera said they’ll be meeting with Air Canada again in December.
In the statement afterward, Air Canada said people who request lift assistance will be consistently boarded first and “proactively seated” at the front of the cabin they booked.
Air Canada summoned to Ottawa for incidents with people using wheelchairs
Featured VideoAfter a series of ‘humiliating’ incidents aboard Air Canada flights involving passengers who use wheelchairs, Transportation Minister Pablo Rodriguez has summoned the airline to his office in Ottawa.
The company also said mobility aids, like wheelchairs, will be stored in the aircraft cabin “when possible.” If aids have to be stored beneath the aircraft, the company said it is creating a new tracking system that will include a process to confirm the aids are actually on the plane before it takes off.
“Customers travelling within Canada will be able to track the journey of their mobility aid using the Air Canada app,” it said.
Ryan Lachance, who lives with quad-spastic cerebral palsy, is pictured with his care aid Emma Proulx at his apartment in White Rock, B.C., on Nov. 1. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
Employees will be now be trained annually to better serve people with disabilities, including training on how to properly lift a person who needs help. The airline has also new senior position to ensure the plan is rolled out properly.
Tom Stevens, VP of customer experience at Air Canada, said over 2,000 people who require mobility assistance travel with the airline every day, most of them without incident.
“We know we need to get accessible travel right 100 per cent of the time. What we’ve announced today is the first step on this journey,” he said.
“We know even a single service failure is a service failure too many.”
Stevens said Air Canada is “accelerating the first step of measures, which we think will get at the vast majority of situations.”
The Canadian Transportation Agency, which regulates air travel in Canada, received 197 complaints about accessibility during the 2022-2023 reporting period. Data showed 54 of those complaints were related to mobility aids, while 46 were related to problems with extra assistance.
In total, the agency has received 975 complaints about accessibility since 2018 — nearly 200 each year.
In August, the airline was fined $50,000 for failing “to provide a temporary replacement mobility aid that met the mobility needs of a person with a disability who did not retain their mobility aid during their flight and which was not made available to the person at their arrival.”
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese technology group SoftBank swung back to profitability in the July-September quarter, boosted by positive results in its Vision Fund investments.
Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp. reported Tuesday a fiscal second quarter profit of nearly 1.18 trillion yen ($7.7 billion), compared with a 931 billion yen loss in the year-earlier period.
Quarterly sales edged up about 6% to nearly 1.77 trillion yen ($11.5 billion).
SoftBank credited income from royalties and licensing related to its holdings in Arm, a computer chip-designing company, whose business spans smartphones, data centers, networking equipment, automotive, consumer electronic devices, and AI applications.
The results were also helped by the absence of losses related to SoftBank’s investment in office-space sharing venture WeWork, which hit the previous fiscal year.
WeWork, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023, emerged from Chapter 11 in June.
SoftBank has benefitted in recent months from rising share prices in some investment, such as U.S.-based e-commerce company Coupang, Chinese mobility provider DiDi Global and Bytedance, the Chinese developer of TikTok.
SoftBank’s financial results tend to swing wildly, partly because of its sprawling investment portfolio that includes search engine Yahoo, Chinese retailer Alibaba, and artificial intelligence company Nvidia.
SoftBank makes investments in a variety of companies that it groups together in a series of Vision Funds.
The company’s founder, Masayoshi Son, is a pioneer in technology investment in Japan. SoftBank Group does not give earnings forecasts.
Shopify Inc. executives brushed off concerns that incoming U.S. President Donald Trump will be a major detriment to many of the company’s merchants.
“There’s nothing in what we’ve heard from Trump, nor would there have been anything from (Democratic candidate) Kamala (Harris), which we think impacts the overall state of new business formation and entrepreneurship,” Shopify’s chief financial officer Jeff Hoffmeister told analysts on a call Tuesday.
“We still feel really good about all the merchants out there, all the entrepreneurs that want to start new businesses and that’s obviously not going to change with the administration.”
Hoffmeister’s comments come a week after Trump, a Republican businessman, trounced Harris in an election that will soon return him to the Oval Office.
On the campaign trail, he threatened to impose tariffs of 60 per cent on imports from China and roughly 10 per cent to 20 per cent on goods from all other countries.
If the president-elect makes good on the promise, many worry the cost of operating will soar for companies, including customers of Shopify, which sells e-commerce software to small businesses but also brands as big as Kylie Cosmetics and Victoria’s Secret.
These merchants may feel they have no choice but to pass on the increases to customers, perhaps sparking more inflation.
If Trump’s tariffs do come to fruition, Shopify’s president Harley Finkelstein pointed out China is “not a huge area” for Shopify.
However, “we can’t anticipate what every presidential administration is going to do,” he cautioned.
He likened the uncertainty facing the business community to the COVID-19 pandemic where Shopify had to help companies migrate online.
“Our job is no matter what comes the way of our merchants, we provide them with tools and service and support for them to navigate it really well,” he said.
Finkelstein was questioned about the forthcoming U.S. leadership change on a call meant to delve into Shopify’s latest earnings, which sent shares soaring 27 per cent to $158.63 shortly after Tuesday’s market open.
The Ottawa-based company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, reported US$828 million in net income for its third quarter, up from US$718 million in the same quarter last year, as its revenue rose 26 per cent.
Revenue for the period ended Sept. 30 totalled US$2.16 billion, up from US$1.71 billion a year earlier.
Subscription solutions revenue reached US$610 million, up from US$486 million in the same quarter last year.
Merchant solutions revenue amounted to US$1.55 billion, up from US$1.23 billion.
Shopify’s net income excluding the impact of equity investments totalled US$344 million for the quarter, up from US$173 million in the same quarter last year.
Daniel Chan, a TD Cowen analyst, said the results show Shopify has a leadership position in the e-commerce world and “a continued ability to gain market share.”
In its outlook for its fourth quarter of 2024, the company said it expects revenue to grow at a mid-to-high-twenties percentage rate on a year-over-year basis.
“Q4 guidance suggests Shopify will finish the year strong, with better-than-expected revenue growth and operating margin,” Chan pointed out in a note to investors.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
TORONTO – RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust says it has cut almost 10 per cent of its staff as it deals with a slowdown in the condo market and overall pushes for greater efficiency.
The company says the cuts, which amount to around 60 employees based on its last annual filing, will mean about $9 million in restructuring charges and should translate to about $8 million in annualized cash savings.
The job cuts come as RioCan and others scale back condo development plans as the market softens, but chief executive Jonathan Gitlin says the reductions were from a companywide efficiency effort.
RioCan says it doesn’t plan to start any new construction of mixed-use properties this year and well into 2025 as it adjusts to the shifting market demand.
The company reported a net income of $96.9 million in the third quarter, up from a loss of $73.5 million last year, as it saw a $159 million boost from a favourable change in the fair value of investment properties.
RioCan reported what it says is a record-breaking 97.8 per cent occupancy rate in the quarter including retail committed occupancy of 98.6 per cent.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
