Canada’s beleaguered airline industry is taking cautious steps to restart operations after travel restrictions brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic grounded much of the sector — but getting planes back in the air will be a costly and risky undertaking.
Flair Airlines is one Canadian carrier ramping back up operations next month. In July, the low-cost domestic airline, which launched three years ago, will expand its routes across the country.
But even though many Canadians are hesitant about boarding a plane, airlines need to start offering flights with more safety measures so the industry can recover, said Flair CEO Jim Scott.
“It’s a chicken and an egg problem. You can’t attract passengers if you don’t have a flight,” Scott told CBC News. “If you have a flight and people don’t show up, you have to operate it. If you operate it at a loss, eventually you’ll go out of business.”
Scott said that operating an airline at this time is a juggling act that involves estimating how much traffic will return to the industry and matching that to the industry’s ability to accommodate it — all at a rate that breaks even or generates revenue on every flight.
“If we get it wrong, we can lose an awful lot of money,” he said.
The company has already let go of 50 per cent of its workforce because of the pandemic and cancelled a planned expansion into the Maritimes due to provincial travel restrictions and quarantine rules.
Flair Airlines CEO Jim Scott says air travel has become a “surreal” experience because of the many safety protocols undertaken by passengers and staff — measures he says are necessary for an airline to operate in the middle of a pandemic. (Mike Zimmer)
Daunting process for many airlines
It’s a similar story for other airlines: Air Canada announced in May that it was slashing its workforce by 50 to 60 per cent, while WestJet laid off half its 14,000-member workforce in March before rehiring most of them under the federal government’s wage subsidy program.
Flair took advantage of that program, but Scott said topping up employees’ salaries is still costly. The carrier is in the midst of private talks with Ottawa for tens of millions of dollars in loans because the airline doesn’t bring in enough revenue to qualify for the government’s offer of bridge financing for large Canadian businesses.
Bigger carriers who do qualify for the financing haven’t said whether they’ll sign on and say they’re looking into the conditions tied to receiving it.
An Air Canada worker cleans her ticketing station at Pearson International Airport in Toronto in April 2020. The airline revealed last month that it would be laying off more than 20,000 employees from its workforce. (Nathan Denette/Canadian Press)
Canadian airlines have chosen to ramp up operations for the coming season despite those circumstances.
After cutting 90 per cent of its operations, Flair is inching back up to 30 per cent of normal operations in order to expand its routes.
Air Transat revealed last week that it expects to resume its flights on July 23 to almost two dozen international destinations including France, Italy and Mexico as long as travel restrictions at that time allow it.
Air Canada is also adding more international destinations to its slate including London, Paris and Frankfurt, while WestJet said in an email to CBC that it was “working through an updated July schedule that will include an increase in daily flight frequencies.”
“While increased flying is a positive sign, it is important to remember that we are only flying five per cent of our schedule and an increase in flight numbers is not an indication of our recovery or return to normal operations,” the email read.
Glamour is gone, Scott says
Expanding service amid a public health crisis means air travel has become an entirely new experience.
“The glamour is out of flying right now,” said Scott. “People are very quiet. They board the airplane with social distancing. I think the social element of flying, talking to a neighbour, meeting people, having jokes with flight attendants and so on, those days are gone for now.”
A number of safety measures are already in place in airports across the country, including a requirement for all passengers and staff to wear masks, the completion of health-screening questionnaires and enhanced cleaning protocols.
Passengers travelling to, from or within Canada will have to undergo mandatory temperature checks before boarding. Some airlines are already doing this, including Air Canada, WestJet and Flair Airlines.
Like other airlines, passengers about to board a Flair aircraft must first answer a basic health questionnaire and get their temperature checked. (CBC News)
Flying itself is now significantly different: some airlines have suspended food and beverage service, while others no longer distribute pillows and blankets.
Airlines are also disinfecting their planes with medical-grade cleaning products between flights.
Flair’s fleet is sanitized before every trip, and passengers on connecting flights must deplane when they stop in a new city while the plane is cleaned again. The company is “fogging” down the aircraft with a sanitizer procured from Germany.
In other measures, passengers on Air Transat flights will be given their own face covering, gloves, sanitizer and wipes. Air Canada passengers can expect to receive a similar kit, along with an empty seat directly adjacent to their own.
WATCH | How Flair Airlines disinfects its fleet:
John Mullins, Flair’s vice president of customer experience and airports, says airlines used to dust. Now, they deep clean. 0:34
Passengers cautious too
Passengers will be guarded when entering this new era of air travel, said Ian Jack, a spokesperson for the Canadian Automobile Association (CAA).
“I think a lot of people today are simply worried that we’ll have a repeat of March [and] April where they’ll buy a ticket, they’ll spend potentially thousands of dollars and then the flight will get cancelled … because we got a COVID outbreak somewhere in the world,” said Jack, whose association is also a consumer group that previously fought for air passenger rights.
Jack said those embarking on air travel this summer should be particularly diligent about checking travel advisories and rules about refunds.
“The biggest concern is that … people are going to get burned again,” Jack said. “Either they’re not going to be able to fly where they want to go and they won’t get a refund, or that they’re going to get to their destination and find that things are closed.”
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
