Cuban government apologizes to Montreal-area family after delivering wrong body
Cuba's foreign affairs minister has apologized to a Montreal-area family after they were sent the wrong body following the death of a loved one.
Retirements, high training costs and poor pay are fuelling a pilot shortage in Canada, industry analysts say, at a time when travel has surged in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Air travel has rebounded since public-health restrictions put in place to curb the spread of COVID-19 grounded flights starting in 2020.
As those restrictions were lifted, travel has surged and been met with lengthy delays at airports and flight cancellations, most notably over the winter holidays as a severe winter storm and a lack of planning and staffing contributed to the problem.
The number of commercial pilot licences issued in Canada has also fallen by more than 80 per cent since 2019.
"There's ... not enough people starting up at the bottom of the scale to get people interested in flying," John Gradek, a lecturer in aviation management at McGill University in Montreal, told CTV's Your Morning on Monday.
A 2018 report from the Canadian Council for Aviation and Aerospace found that based on demand, the industry will need as many as 7,300 more pilots by 2025.
Forced and voluntary retirements have helped drive the yearslong shortage of Canadian pilots, Gradek said, but the pandemic has exacerbated the problem even more.
A number of new low-cost carriers have also entered the marketplace while others have expanded, leading to more capacity but also a greater need for pilots.
A person can expect to pay as much as $100,000 or more to train as a pilot, Gradek said, and there is little financial aid available to students, something he believes needs to change.
"They laid off thousands of pilots across the industry and now, with the start of a number of new carriers in the Canadian marketplace and growth of existing carriers, guess what we're short and it's going to be a tough summer to try to find pilots in Canada."
Dave Boston, pilot and founder of Pilot Career Centre, told CTV News Channel last week that on top of laying off pilots, flight schools also suffered during the pandemic while more corporate jets came on the market to serve the "ultra rich."
"So every airline across Canada is hiring pilots as fast as they can and they're competing with one another for the same group of pilots," he said.
But even calling the situation a pilot shortage is oversimplifying a complicated issue, Tim Perry, president of the Canadian division of the Air Line Pilots Association, told CTV News Channel in January.
Much of what is occurring, he said, is an attraction and retention issue on the part of airlines, with many new carriers not paying enough and creating a "revolving door" where pilots leave for better jobs.
Sunwing has blamed its flight disruptions and cancellations over the holidays, in part, on the pilot shortage, pointing specifically to the federal government's decision to deny an application to hire 63 temporary foreign workers.
However, Perry has called that argument "absurd" and said any Canadian airline that compensates pilots appropriately shouldn't need to hire temporary foreign workers.
"Attracting pilots is the first step and retaining them is the second step and airlines have a responsibility to do both in order to deliver on the services that they market," Perry told CTV News Channel.
With files from CTV National News Manitoba Bureau Chief Jill Macyshon, CTVNews.ca Writer Tom Yun and The Canadian Press
Cuba's foreign affairs minister has apologized to a Montreal-area family after they were sent the wrong body following the death of a loved one.
The federal government's proposed change to capital gains taxation is expected to increase taxes on investments and mainly affect wealthy Canadians and businesses. Here's what you need to know about the move.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is accusing Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre of welcoming 'the support of conspiracy theorists and extremists,' after the Conservative leader was photographed meeting with protesters, which his office has defended.
"It's a bit of a complicated pattern; we've got a lot going on," said Jennifer Smith of the Meteorological Service of Canada in an interview with CTVNews.ca on Wednesday. "[As is] typical with weather, all of these things are related."
On a night she should have been mourning, a nurse from Quebec's Laurentians region says she was forced to clean up her husband after he died at a hospital in Montreal.
Police tangled with student demonstrators in Texas and California while new encampments sprouted Wednesday at Harvard and other colleges as school leaders sought ways to defuse a growing wave of pro-Palestinian protests.
Members of the Bank of Canada's governing council were split on how long the central bank should wait before it starts cutting interest rates when they met earlier this month.
A North Bay, Ont., lawyer who abandoned 15 clients – many of them child protection cases – has lost his licence to practise law.
A Winnipeg man said a single date gone wrong led to years of criminal harassment, false arrests, stress and depression.
A property tax bill is perplexing a small townhouse community in Fergus, Ont.
When identical twin sisters Kim and Michelle Krezonoski were invited to compete against some of the world’s most elite female runners at last week’s Boston Marathon, they were in disbelief.
The giant stone statues guarding the Lions Gate Bridge have been dressed in custom Vancouver Canucks jerseys as the NHL playoffs get underway.
A local Oilers fan is hoping to see his team cut through the postseason, so he can cut his hair.
A family from Laval, Que. is looking for answers... and their father's body. He died on vacation in Cuba and authorities sent someone else's body back to Canada.
A former educational assistant is calling attention to the rising violence in Alberta's classrooms.
The federal government says its plan to increase taxes on capital gains is aimed at wealthy Canadians to achieve “tax fairness.”
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.
Kevin the cat has been reunited with his family after enduring a harrowing three-day ordeal while lost at Toronto Pearson International Airport earlier this week.