WestJet says it has cut back on its summer flying schedule

WestJet Airlines is operating 32 per cent fewer flights into and out of Toronto Pearson International Airport in July than it did prior to the pandemic, as the Canadian travel sector continues to battle with an unexpected resurgence in demand.

CEO Alexis von Hoensbroech said the Calgary-based WestJet made a series of proactive schedule reductions between March and May in anticipation of the logistical problems that have led to the long lineups, snarled connections and cancelled flights experienced by travellers at Canadian airports in recent weeks.

“I don’t think there is another airline that serves Toronto that has reduced its schedule as much as we have,” von Hoensbroech said in an interview Thursday. “We have been quite proactive and thoughtful in dealing with our flight plans.”

As Canada’s largest airport, Toronto Pearson has been the epicentre of the travel-related woes affecting this country’s air passengers since the lifting of COVID-related public health restrictions began.

Airlines and airports that reduced staffing levels drastically when air travel ground to a near-halt at the start of the pandemic have found themselves unprepared for this spring’s dramatic resurgence in demand.

WestJet, for example, which hit a pandemic low of just 4,000 employees in 2020, has built its head count back up to 10,000, but that’s still nearly 30 per cent lower than the 14,000 staffers it had in 2019.

“We’ve hired more than 1,000 people over the last couple of months, and we are now hiring another 100 people just to deal with baggage challenges. We have increased our call centre staff by 20 per cent,” von Hoensbroech said.

“We are doing whatever we can to get staff in, but we also know that across all industries, we are seeing a lack of staff. It’s not just a WestJet problem, it’s not just an aviation problem … it’s a general economy problem.”

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According to analytics firm Data Wazo, 54 per cent of domestic flights to Canada’s four largest airports were either delayed or cancelled over the past week. The hardest hit was Toronto’s Pearson airport, with more than 700 flights (51 per cent) delayed and 15 per cent cancelled.

On Wednesday night, Air Canada said it will cut more than 15 per cent of its schedule in July and August, more than 9,500 flights, due to the strained air transport system. Most of the flights Air Canada will remove link to the airline’s Toronto and Montreal hubs.

Nation-wide, WestJet is operating approximately 530 flights per day this summer, or 25 per cent fewer flights than it operated in the summer of 2019.