Cyclist issued fine for striking four-year-old girl crossing the street
A cyclist turned herself in and received a fine after striking a four-year-old girl who was crossing the street to catch a school bus.
It's been a nightmare for travellers flying through Canada's busiest airport, with long lines, flight delays and cancellations becoming the norm, and aviation experts predict that these problems are only going to get worse before they improve.
Duncan Dee, former chief operating officer for Air Canada, says much of these delays stem from staffing levels at customs and immigration desks at Toronto Pearson International Airport inadequately equipped to deal with the surge in passenger traffic as well as the COVID-19 border measures, creating a domino effect of delays.
"Each and every one of the travellers is screened. And it's now taking four times longer than it did before the pandemic," he told CTV News on Wednesday.
Prior to the pandemic, it used to take 30 to 60 seconds to screen a passenger for customs and immigration. Today, Dee says the process takes four to five minutes, thanks in large part to the COVID-19-related screening questions through the ArriveCAN app and checking of vaccine certificates.
"You've quadrupled the amount of time it takes them to process every traveller. So unless you quadruple the number of people doing the processing, you're going to have a delay," he said.
Travellers unfamiliar with the ArriveCAN system may not have filled out the form on the app properly. They may have a proof of vaccination that isn't in English or French, or the type of vaccine may be one that isn't distributed in Canada, such as the Russian Sputnik V vaccine. Some travellers may even be randomly selected to undergo a COVID-19 test upon arrival.
All of this adds another "level of complexity" for Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) officers, Dee says.
"The CBSA officers are some of the best around. These folks do a really great job and normally they work extremely quickly, but you've put them in a position where they're trying to enforce mandates that are completely impossible enforce in the timeframe that they've got," he said.
The delays and long lines at the customs hall in turn create a knock-down effect that create more delays for incoming international travellers who haven't gotten off the plane. Dee says in order to avoid overcrowding at the terminal, incoming planes will be instructed by air traffic control to wait at the tarmac until some of the backlog at the customs line has cleared.
And even when passengers start deplaning, they may only let 10 to 50 passengers per half hour get off the plane at a time in order to avoid a crush at the terminal.
"If you've got 250 people on a plane, with 50 every half hour, you're suddenly counting another hour and a half before everybody is off the plane. But that's not even the end. They get to the customs and they're behind a two-hour line before they even see an officer," Dee explained.
"All of that adds up … and it's six and a half hours before they get into a taxi or their ride home and it's just not sustainable."
With more travellers expected in July and August, Dee says the problems at Pearson are only going to get worse.
"It's a simple mathematical equation. There are 22 to 24 per cent more travelers in the months of July and August than there are in May in April and there were lineups in May and April. You could just imagine what happens when there are even more travelers in July and August," he said.
But the issues at Pearson aren't a uniquely Canadian problem. As Transport Minister Omar Alghabra has pointed out, many European airports have also been struggling with delays and long lines, sometimes stretching to outside the terminal.
In an effort to address these delays, Alghabra has said the federal government is hiring 400 new CATSA screening officers and is looking into making "more adjustments" to COVID-19 travel rules. But McGill University aviation expert John Gradek says the much of the blame lies with the airlines rather than CATSA or the CBSA.
"The root cause is that there's too many passengers coming into and out of the airports than what the capacity the airport can handle," Gradek told CTV News on Wednesday.
Some European airports, such as Amsterdam's Schiphol and London Heathrow airports, have asked airlines to cut their flights and cap the number of passengers in order to avoid overcrowding. Gradek believes similar asks need to be put to Canadian airlines.
"The airlines are hungry for money. They're hungry for revenue. So, they're going to pack on their schedules. They're going to want to have more and more passengers onto their airplanes, generate more revenue," he said. "Somebody has to step up and basically say, 'X percentage of your flights, you have to cut back.'"
Both Gradek and Dee expect the delays to plague Pearson and other airports around the world until September, after the end of the summer travel season.
"The airlines have yet to see the best passenger numbers. The airports have yet to see the worst of their delays," Gradek said.
A cyclist turned herself in and received a fine after striking a four-year-old girl who was crossing the street to catch a school bus.
Where you live plays a big factor in what you pay at the grocery store. And while it's no secret the same item may have a different price depending on the store, city or province, we wanted to see just how big the differences are, and why.
The Netherlands' contestant in the Eurovision Song Contest was dramatically expelled from competition hours before Saturday's final of the pan-continental pop competition, which has been rattled by protests over the participation of Israel.
Irresponsibly using a credit card can land you in financial trouble, but personal finance columnist Christopher Liew says when used properly, it can be a powerful wealth-building tool that can help grow your credit profile and create new opportunities.
A man who was accused of sexually and physically assaulting a woman had his charges dropped in April, just weeks before he was set to stand trial in Toronto, due to a lack of judges in the region.
For decades, North Bay, Ontario's water supply has harboured chemicals associated with liver and developmental issues, cancer and complications with pregnancy. It's far from the only city with that problem.
A protest encampment set up on the University of Alberta campus was cleared early Saturday morning by Edmonton police.
An evacuation alert was issued for two Wood Buffalo communities Friday night, as crews battled an out-of-control wildfire near Fort McMurray.
A man has been transported to hospital after police say he was stabbed in a random attack carried out by a group of teens in Toronto on Friday night.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.
The threat of zebra mussels has prompted the federal government to temporarily ban watercraft from a Manitoba lake popular with tourists.
A small Ajax dessert shop that recently received a glowing review from celebrity food critic Keith Lee is being forced to move after a zoning complaint was made following the social media influencer’s visit last month.
The Canada Science and Technology Museum is inviting visitors to explore their poop. A new exhibition opens at the Ottawa museum on Friday called, 'Oh Crap! Rethinking human waste.'
The Regina Police Service says it is the first in Saskatchewan and possibly Canada to implement new technology in its detention facility that will offer real-time monitoring of detainees’ vital health metrics.
Just as she had feared, a restaurant owner from eastern Quebec who visited Montreal had her SUV stolen, but says it was all thanks to the kindness of strangers on the internet — not the police — that she got it back.
The stakes have been set for a bet between Vancouver and Edmonton's mayors on who will win Round 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
A grieving mother is hosting a helmet drive in the hopes of protecting children on Manitoba First Nations from a similar tragedy that killed her daughter.