Arab Canada News
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Published: May 18, 2022
Canadian airports are calling on the federal government to ease COVID-19 screening requirements as they continue to deal with an overwhelming backlog of travelers.
Interim Chair of the Canadian Airports Council Monette Pasher said on Wednesday that airports were able to handle restrictions in a timely manner when passenger volumes dropped due to the pandemic, but have struggled as passenger volumes returned to normal.
She said, "Regarding international travel, our airports really cannot easily facilitate these public health requirements because we have returned to regular travel. We could do this when we were moving 10 percent of (normal passenger volume) up to 50 percent of passengers. But as of the first week of May, we had recovered 70 percent of pre-COVID levels, and it is very difficult to facilitate regular travel with these restrictions."
Pasher added that the biggest problem causing the backlog is a staff shortage and said that the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority - a Crown agency responsible for security screening at Canadian airports - is working hard to streamline the hiring and training process.
But she said the federal government could do more to help by removing random tests and public health questions for arriving passengers.
She added, "Our biggest problem really, at Pearson, relates to international arrivals and the need to remove testing from our airports and some of these public health requirements."
The federal government has lifted some travel restrictions over the course of the pandemic, but has been slow to do so.
Like many jurisdictions, Canada has struggled to adjust COVID-19 health screening to balance protecting the country from new variants and returning to normal life. The issue has also been politicized at times, with Ontario Premier Doug Ford blaming some previous infection waves on lax border protocols.
The government had canceled the pre-travel COVID test requirement for fully vaccinated travelers since April 1.
For weeks now, airports have been warning passengers to prepare for extended delays and to leave a three-hour buffer at the airport before international flights. But there have also been long wait times on the tarmac for arriving passengers.
Pasher said she hopes the problems will be resolved so the summer travel season passes smoothly.
She said, "We will work together and find solutions to make things better in the summer. We have lost a lot of money over the past two years - our airports have incurred $3 billion in debt. We need to get back to work as well, and we need to facilitate travel so that we can make up for some of these losses and recover from them. Airlines are in the same situation too, so no one wants to restrict travel, and that is for sure."
Edited by: Dima Abu Khair
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