OTTAWA,
ON, June 24, 2022 /CNW/ - The Minister of
Transport, the Honourable Omar
Alghabra, the Minister of Health, the Honourable
Jean-Yves Duclos, the Minister of
Public Safety, the Honourable Marco
Mendicino, and the Minister of Tourism and Associate
Minister of Finance, the Honourable Randy
Boissonnault, issued this update today on progress being
made by the Government of Canada and industry partners to reduce
wait times at Canadian airports.
Meeting between Minister Alghabra and air industry
partners
On Thursday, June 23, Minister
Alghabra and senior officials from Transport Canada, the Canadian
Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA), NAV CANADA, Canada Border Services Agency
(CBSA), and the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), met with the
CEOs of Air Canada, WestJet and Toronto Pearson, Montréal Trudeau,
Calgary and Vancouver airports. They assessed the progress
being made by all partners to reduce congestion at airports and
next steps.
Improvements to ArriveCAN
The Government of Canada continues to make
improvements to ArriveCAN so it is faster and easier for
travellers to use.
- Travellers arriving at Toronto Pearson or Vancouver Airports
will be able to save time by using the Advance CBSA Declaration
optional feature in ArriveCAN to submit their customs and
immigration declaration in advance of arrival. Beginning
June 28, this option will be
available on ArriveCAN mobile app in addition to the web
version.
- Frequent travellers are also encouraged to take advantage of
the "saved traveller" feature in ArriveCAN. It allows a user to
save travel documents and proof of vaccination information to reuse
on future trips. The information is pre-populated in ArriveCAN the
next time the traveller completes a submission, which makes it
faster and more convenient.
Actions taken
Actions currently underway by the Government of Canada and the
air industry include:
- Since April, just over 1,000 CATSA screening officers have been
hired across Canada. With this, the number of screening officers at
Toronto Pearson International Airport and Vancouver International Airport is now over
100 percent of the targeted requirements for this summer based on
projected traffic.
- CBSA is maximizing officer availability and additional Student
Border Services Officers are now at work.
- CBSA and the Greater Toronto Airports Authority are making
available additional kiosks at Toronto Pearson International
Airport customs hall areas.
- CBSA and PHAC streamlined the process to identify travellers
who are required to undergo testing at Toronto Pearson
International Airport.
- As of June 11, mandatory random
COVID-19 testing has been temporarily suspended at all airports
until June 30. As of July 1, all test swabbing, including for
unvaccinated travellers, will be performed off-site.
- PHAC is adding additional staff on select days to verify that
travellers have completed their ArriveCAN submissions on arrival
and further inform air travellers about the importance of the
mandatory requirements. ArriveCAN is mandatory for all travellers
to Canada and is available for free as an app or through the
website.
In addition, Canadian airports and airlines are taking
significant action to bring on more employees quickly and to
bolster core operations to respond to rapidly increasing traveller
demands as the number of Canadians travelling by air continues to
grow rapidly as we head into the summer.
The actions we've taken since the beginning of May have yielded
significant gains. From June 13 to
19, across all larger airports combined, CATSA maintained
the standard of over 85 percent of passengers being screened in 15
minutes or less. Toronto Pearson Airport maintained its strong
results, with 87.2 percent of passengers screened in 15 minutes or
less, slightly down from the previous week's 91.1 percent.
Calgary International Airport saw
an increase to 90 percent of passengers screened within 15 minutes
or less, from 85.8 percent the previous week. Vancouver International Airport and Montreal
Trudeau International Airport saw declines in passengers screened
in under 15 minutes, to 80.9 percent and 75.9 percent,
respectively.
We are making progress, but we also recognize that there is
still work to be done. We continue to take action with air industry
partners to reduce the delays in the travel system and report back
to Canadians on our progress.
Transport Canada is online at www.tc.gc.ca. Subscribe to e-news
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SOURCE Transport Canada