Government caught ‘flat-footed’ by travel surge at Toronto airport: former airline exec

Duncan Dee, who worked for Air Canada for 15 years including a period as chief operating officer, said security and customs delays were creating 'cascading delays.'

A former Canadian airline executive says that responsibility for weeks of delays and cancellations at Toronto Pearson International Airport rests on the shoulders of the federal government.

Duncan Dee, who worked for Air Canada for 15 years until 2013, including a period as chief operating officer, told Global News that security and customs delays were creating “cascading delays” that have left airlines unable to plan or staff their routes.

“The root cause of it is really very poor preparation,” he said. “You have government agencies that are completely unprepared for what everyone knew.”

Dee explained the carefully timed balancing act aircraft and their crews attempt in order to run flights efficiently.

Specific time slots are set aside for aircraft to use gates and counters which, when it works, operate like a well-oiled machine.

However, delays in unloading passengers into the customs hall, for example, can stop gates being available for the next flight (delaying it) or leave crews without the hours they need to work their next flight (cancelling it).

“The assets that are involved — the aircraft, the gates, the counters that are assigned to a specific flight — can no longer operate normally,” Dee said.

“It becomes impossible because a flight comes into the gate that is two hours late, customs tells them they’re only allowing 10 off the plane every 10 minutes or 50 off the plane every 30 minutes and it basically (increases) the time an aircraft uses the gate exponentially.”