With high-traffic airports such as Toronto’s Pearson already struggling with staffing issues and buckling under the weight of increased travel, industry experts are wondering if this will add to the tourism industry’s ongoing woes.
Just over a month after the federal government paused random COVID-19 testing at Canada’s four major airports, the process is returning — but this time, it’ll take place outside of the airports.
Gradek doesn’t believe the issue will impact travel in 2022. People won’t likely cancel their trips to Canada because of the reintroduced testing, he said. In a statement shared on Twitter, the National Airlines Council of Canada said that while members “welcome the step to move testing outside of airports to reduce traveller congestion,” they stand by their position that it’s time to “utilize alternative methods” of assessing COVID-19 transmission and future variants, such as wastewater testing.
In recent months, Pearson airport has made headlines for long wait times on the tarmac and winding lineups at security. The delaysin large part by labour shortages, with the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority telling the Star in May its workforce was thinned by pandemic layoffs and challenges with recruitment.
In a news release issued by the Public Health Agency of Canada Thursday, the federal government said testing “remains an important part of our surveillance program to track the importation of COVID-19” into Canada and monitor for new variants of concern. At WestJet, a nationwide systems outage meant that for several hours, passengers couldn’t use the airline’s website to make payments, or plan their trips. The outage also meant that WestJet passengers couldn’t check in at airports, nor could they use the self-serve baggage drop.
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