YVR apologizes after massive airport delays Sunday
Posted August 29, 2022 11:49 am.
Last Updated August 29, 2022 6:27 pm.
Vancouver International Airport (YVR) is apologizing to travellers after severe delays on Sunday due to security staff shortages.
Airport administration says there were 17 screening lines open, when usually it’s more like 20 or even 23 on a typical Sunday.
Vice President of Passenger Journey Robyn McVicker tells CityNews the unexpected shortage of screeners was due to some staff not showing up for work, and no one could have predicted what happened.
“What happened yesterday (Sunday) is Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA), the screen authority responsible for security screen at the airport, had more staff book off, meaning they did not show up for work, than was expected, which meant that we had to close or not open a number of the screening areas, therefore limiting the amount of people and the time that people could go through security screening to get to their flights,” said McVicker.
“This is not something we want to see at YVR, we are so sorry for the experience that our passengers had.”
While she’s unsure of the exact number of passengers affected by the ordeal, McVicker says the delays were widespread.
“Hundreds of flights were delayed yesterday, pretty much everyone who was in the airport experienced delays,” she explained, noting around 70,000 travellers passed through the airport Sunday.
“That’s normal for us, that’s a normal day in the summer. We are equipped and ready to manage those numbers.”
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McVicker notes anyone who missed a flight Sunday and was unable to get on another within that day is being rebooked.
As for Monday, things are running much smoother, according to McVicker.
“It is much better, we are not seeing anywhere near the same type of delays. In fact, I can tell you right now, we have two screening areas open for domestic, and wait times are between 15 and 20 minutes, there’s no wait for international and [waits for] the U.S. are about 10 minutes,” she told CityNews Monday morning.
Although operations are functioning well to start the week, she McVicker admits the difficulty of the whole staffing process, is they don’t know that something will go wrong until it’s too late.
“We hear from CATSA, that screening staffing is much better today. We are watching it on a daily basis. But the challenge for us is that we don’t know until the beginning of the shift whether or not they’re going to have enough staff to cover. And that’s where the challenge is. So we continually ask for CASTA to have a better long term solution for the security screening at Canadian airports.”
Many travellers took to social media Sunday to share their frustrations. Hours-long delays were reported by many, with both domestic and international passengers affected.
