For almost three weeks, Pichette waited for her bags. “We waited and waited and waited, and of course the luggage did not show up,” he told CTV National News. The cruise and vacation consultant’s luggage was lost throughout her trip, only to be returned a week after landing in Ottawa. “The interesting thing is that we were not alone – there were about 8 or 10 other passengers in the same situation,” he said. The experience is one in a series of recent frustrations for passengers, many of which have been caused by staff shortages. Why is there so little staff right now? According to employees, some of the big reasons are that they are not treated well and their pay is not enough for how difficult the job is. “There are so many inspectors who have resigned because of low pay and poor working conditions that airports are overcrowded,” David Lipton, USW’s representative in Ottawa, told CTV National News. On Monday, police at 42 airports across the country took action, dressed in casual clothes instead of uniforms to protest wages and working hours. “Employees work hours and hours and hours without breaks, in many cases with forced overtime,” Lipton said. “Their salaries are simply not at the same level. “As a result, many executives are leaving to find another job.” These challenges come at a time when staff are so short that some unions offer screening staff hundreds of dollars a week if they are not on vacation or sick days. The union says improving hours and working conditions should be done as soon as possible. With some experts wary of new Omicron variants and the vaccination order being reduced for domestic flights on June 20, there is concern that this could lead to the departure of even more staff. Lipton says there are usually 350 security guards in Ottawa, but the airport is currently operating with just over 200. It has a measurable impact on travelers, emphasizing how critical these jobs are. “There were more and more delays, just one to two hours just to get through security,” Hunter Dixon, who was traveling from Phoenix, told CTV National News. Upcoming work action is not expected to affect safety expectations and will not take place in Toronto, Vancouver or Calgary, where staff are in a different union. The federal government also announced Tuesday that it is aware of the delays and is working on solutions, adding that nearly 900 control officers have been hired since April across Canada. They said waiting times were falling, with about 10 percent of passengers departing to wait more than 15 minutes at Toronto Pearson International Airport in early June compared with 23 percent in mid-May. But after a nightmarish effort, some travelers are ready to give up flights altogether until the airlines solve the problems that are forcing staff to quit their jobs. “What I would say as a vacation consultant is, do not go now,” Pichette said. “I mean, it will fix itself, but it will take time.”
