Staff struggles and Travel Demand force Air Canada to Cut Summer Flights

By Dana Malcolm

Staff Writer

#Canada, July 15, 2022 – Air Canada has announced it will cut 154 flights every day this summer. The announcement was made June 29th in an email to customers by CFO Mike Rousseau.

The official Airline of Canada will slash 77 scheduled round trips per day this summer resulting in the 154 flights per day.  In the statement he explained their reasons for the cancellations.

“Regrettably, things are not business as usual in our industry globally, and this is affecting our operations and our ability to serve you with our normal standards of care. The COVID-19 pandemic brought the world air transport system to a halt in early 2020. Now— people are returning to flying at a rate never seen in our industry.”

Air Canada says the resulting surge has “created unprecedented and unforeseen strains on all aspects of the global aviation system.”

The airline said despite extra hiring and “detailed planning” they couldn’t keep up resulting in the massive swaths of cancellations.

“To bring about the level of operational stability we need, with reluctance, we are now making meaningful reductions to our schedule in July and August.”

The airline says the decision was “not easy” and acknowledged that this would have negative effects on consumers. They claim the announcement would allow “affected customers to take time to make other arrangements in an orderly manner” ,

However many Twitter users are enraged at the situation some of them say their flights in the upcoming days have been cancelled others report flight cancellations at the airport with no time to reschedule and no accommodation provided for them.

Additionally the call-in system is being complained against as well with hours of waiting to reschedule a single flight.

Rousseau seemed aware of the turmoil The cancellations would cause he ended the letter  thanking customers for their patience and understanding and said Air Canada ‘looked forward to regaining loyalty at a time when they could better take care of customers.’