Things I've found to be true...
1. Lack of staffing has been the real issue. Not the other factors that many like to blame it on.
Sure, travel restrictions made a few things more inefficient at airports, but now that they are virtually all but gone, I think anyone can clearly see this was never a significant factor. And no, ArriveCAN is not hindering anything.
Hey man, it's the airlines fault for laying everyone off during covid?!
Imagine you're running a business, airline or otherwise. And here's what the demand for your service looks like, relative to a normal month (100%), once the pandemic hits...
2020:
March 2020 - 45% of a normal March
April - 2% !!!! May - 2% June - 5% July - 10% August - 13% September -14% October - 14% November - 13% December - 13%
2021: January 2021 - 13% February - 7% March - 8% April - 8% May - 8% June - 13%
July - 28% August - 42% September - 43% October - 48% November - 51% December - 47%
2022: January 2022 - 32% February - 41% March - 57% -- is it finally over?
April - 65% May - 76% June - 80%
Now imagine it's January 2022 (6 months before today's date). We're still in the midst of Omicron. You have no way of truly knowing when this will finally be over. Demand for your service is 32% of 'normal' and has been hovering somewhere between 13% and 47% of normal for the past 18 months.
All of a sudden in March it appears all this might *finally* be ending. Global travel restrictions are finally being removed. Demand suddenly spikes back up to somewhere between 80% and 100% of normal in a very short period of time.
You *wish* you would have had a crystal ball in January 2022 to give you at least 6 months to prepare for this. And even that's a stretch for one of the most complicated supply chains in the world.
Realistically, you would have needed that crystal ball in June 2021, a year ago, when demand for your service was 13% of normal, to be prepared to operate at 100% of normal in June 2022.
That would be a pretty bold gamble for any business to take in June 2021.
2. As much as many would like to make this a 'Canada' issue (using it as an excuse to make it political or bash their own country), this is a global issue.
Here's what the Lufthansa executive group (Germany) sent out to customers the other day, similar to Air Canada's recent e-mail:
If *Germany* can't keep things running efficiently right now, you know every country is struggling with this.
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