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Exactly after 10 pm, when I was about to try to fall asleep, a text message arrived from Air Canada: The flight was canceled due to crew restrictions
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June 10, 2022 • 3 hours ago • 7 minutes reading • 117 comments Travelers waiting in line at Terminal 1 at Toronto Pearson Airport, May 9, 2022 Photo by Peter J. Thompson / National Post
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Ryan Whitney’s horrific story about the airport was on all social media on Monday, and I watched his annoying video with some trepidation.
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The former NHL player and current podcast presenter and liquor dealer tried to fly from Edmonton to Boston via Toronto, but got stuck in the construction of Lester B. Pearson Airport, which lasted many hours, which made him miss connections. He called the airport “the worst place in the world” and also “Hell on Earth”.
I had booked a flight from Pearson at 8 a.m. Tuesday. How early did I have to get there to face the giant lines? Five in the morning? Four? I decided to arrive at 5 in the morning because everyone earlier makes you feel like you woke up in the dead of night, not early in the morning.
Exactly after 22:00 on Monday, when I was about to fall asleep, a text message arrived from Air Canada: The flight was canceled due to crew restrictions.
Although it sounds as if the crew was nailed against his will, it is a term that describes one of the problems with the domino effect, which grew against the background of increasing delays in air travel in this country, with Pearson at the epicenter. If the crew works after a certain number of hours, which occurs when there are delays at both ends of the flight, then they will not be able to continue their next planned trip. In this way the crew is limited.
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And so began something that would be a relatively insignificant, yet perfectly revealing series of struggles as I tried to finish what was supposed to be a quick trip. This is a window into the wicked mess that air transport is at the moment, a situation that has developed for many reasons and that has spawned a truly remarkable amount of interagency finger-pointing.
As we entered the customs hall at Terminal 1 in Pearson on Wednesday night, a monitor was set up: “We apologize for the wait,” he wrote. The statement said the federal government’s ongoing health protocols were to blame for the long, serpentine queue of passengers trying to cross border controls.
It’s more complicated than that. But the lesson for now, and probably in the summer, is that there is no such thing as a short flight. Especially if it starts, ends, or even goes through the beehive of misery, which is Pearson.
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Moments after I received this text about the flight cancellation, another arrived from Air Canada. The airline had automatically booked me. (Hooray!) I was now scheduled to fly to Baltimore at 9 a.m., which first went to Montreal. (Hmm.) And I had a 3.5-hour stay. (Waiting for what?)
This is one of the problems that the cascading series of delays has exposed. Airline automated systems are not big thinkers. Why would I want to fight Pearson’s early morning tide just to spend half a day at the Montreal terminal? A mid-afternoon Toronto flight that would take me to Baltimore a little later, but without the extra leg, made more sense.
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The government is working on measures to end the delays at the airport: ministers
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Travel restrictions remain after the removal of Conservative motion
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After all, that was the idea. Arriving in Pearson at noon on Tuesday, steel for chaos, I went through a checkpoint and customs. The problems that have been cited as major factors amid the airport’s madness in recent weeks, the lack of staff in security checks and border controls, are most severe during peak periods such as early mornings. The process in quiet weather can be downright calm.
But after a long wait at the gate, another text from Air Canada: The flight is delayed due to airport restrictions. A little later, another text arrived announcing a new delay for the same reason. Curiously, the plane was sitting there at the gate, ready to move. Our pilot would eventually explain that the restrictions were actually at the other end, where Baltimore-Washington International had to clear the gate for us. We left.
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Duncan Dee, a former CEO of Air Canada, posted a series of social media posts this week that clearly explain the airlines’ struggle.
Security delays and customs checks of several hours lead to subsequent delays throughout the process – check-in, luggage, exit – as airlines have staff in a way that implies an efficient system. Once the wrench is thrown into operation, the whole thing is screwed up and passengers learn about terms such as crew restrictions, airport restrictions and customs detentions.
Dee has since traveled the media to prove that the current pandemic policies of the Trudeau government, which include mandatory vaccinations and evidence of what to upload to the ArriveCAN app, have exacerbated the problems caused by the pandemic shortage of staff by significantly increased the time required to process a passenger at a border control.
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More passengers are waiting in line at Terminal 1 at Toronto Pearson Airport, May 9, 2022. Photo by Peter J. Thompson / National Post
Industrial groups and opposition politicians have called on Ottawa to lift travel restrictions, as has been done in most Western countries, to help speed things up. The government responded by saying it had hired several more security inspectors. As air travel is still well below pre-pandemic levels and the upcoming busy summer season, this doesn’t sound like much of a fix.
On Wednesday it was time to go home and start the fun again.
Although I uploaded my proof of vaccination to both ArriveCAN and Air Canada, I was unable to get a boarding pass because the airline said I had to get one at the airport. I left early in case there were queues. Indeed, Air Canada was checking flights to both Montreal and Toronto, and everyone had to use an agent because they wanted to see evidence that we had successfully navigated the ArriveCAN app.
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An airport employee told me that this was a relatively new thing: since there was such a customs cluster in Toronto, now they wanted someone to make sure everything was filled in correctly at the end of the departure.
An additional confusion was that passengers who only passed through Pearson on their way to another country still had to fill out an ArriveCAN form with all the necessary documentation. The passengers were confused when they reached the part where they asked for the address where they were staying in Canada: “But I’m not STAYING there!” They were told to enter Pearson’s address. An official wrote it with a red marker on a piece of paper and placed it on the registration desk.
There was even more confusion when travelers learned that Pearson was in Mississauga, a difficult-to-write city on the first crack and while reading a handmade sign. A man on his way to Thailand via Montreal was in line for me. An American who is in the US Navy, he was mostly confused by all the documents when he took a picture of his passport while he was landing on his luggage. “Canada, man,” he said.
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What else can you say? “Nice running?”
It took more than an hour to cross that line. My real time at the counter was maybe 30 seconds.
After it became clear at the gate that the problems remain. The flights to Montreal and Toronto used the same gate, so we didn’t go anywhere until they were free. Finally the text arrived: Delay due to delay of the arriving plane. Forty-three minutes later, another text that said we would leave in 25 minutes, which was strange because the Montreal plane was still sitting there and there was no one on board. After another 32 minutes, another delay.
The Montreal flight was sitting there. There was talk of resetting the system, the equivalent of turning off the plane, and then turning it back on. Passengers in Toronto were told to move the gates, and we climbed down the terminal.
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After two more announced delays – the last of which was still “under investigation” – we boarded and took off no more than two hours late. As we approached Pearson, passengers around me asked about their connections in Toronto.
“When is the upload?”
“Now.”
The flight attendants responded with the verbal equivalent of an emoji with clenched teeth. What else can you say? “Nice running?”
A passenger gets a break at Terminal 1 at Toronto Pearson Airport, May 9, 2022. Photo by Peter J. Thompson / National Post
The pilot got on and …
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