CATSA left 25 per cent of its over $800-million budget unspent last year. Parry said they retained about 75 per cent of their staff during the pandemic years, but they weren’t simply going to keep spending while airports were empty.Starting Monday, Canadian travellers will no longer need proof of vaccination for domestic travel or outbound international flights, but they will still need to show proof of vaccination to return to Canada, which has been a chokepoint for border travellers.
“We have been increasing resources at an incredible pace. We have been working with airlines and airports to address bottlenecks, and we are seeing data demonstrate that those efforts are paying dividends over the last few weeks.” “We’re working on efficiencies to ensure that ArriveCAN is less of a source of complaint. However, it continues to be a meaningful tool to verify the vaccination status of travellers who are arriving into our borders.”
John Gradek, coordinator of the Aviation Management Program at McGill University, said international flights will only ramp up in the months ahead and that will lead to more chaos. Prior to the pandemic, Pearson airport employed more than 50,000 people across over 400 companies. A submission the Greater Toronto Airport Authority prepared in February for the federal budget estimated 14,000 of those positions were eliminated in the pandemic. The authority didn’t have an estimate for how many of those jobs have since returned.