MONTREAL — Air Canada has provided an update on its operational-improvement initiatives implemented in response to COVID-19-related challenges, for the period June 27 to August 14.

With regard to flight delays, there was a 48-per-cent reduction, or 1,160 fewer flights, that took a delay longer than one hour. Additionally, flight delays overall are getting shorter. On average, the arrival delay for the week of June 27 was 28 minutes longer than the same week in 2019. As of the week of August 8, this had improved to 12 minutes.

Also, there has been a substantial reduction in the volume of flight cancellations. During the week of August 8, there was a 77-per-cent reduction in the number of cancelled flights compared to the week of June 27, translating into 960 fewer flights cancelled. Furthermore, flight completion reached 96.7 per cent during the week of August 8, which was less than one percentage point lower than the same week in 2019. The majority of customers experiencing cancellations were able to travel within 24 hours.

The strongest area of improvement over this period was in baggage handling. During the week of June 27, mishandling rates per 1,000 customers were approximately 2.5 times the same number in 2019. During the week of August 8, this rate has fully recovered to 2019 levels, with a success rate of 98 per cent.

“At Air Canada, we know how much our customers value travel and their reliance on us to transport them safely, comfortably and without disruption. This is always our goal and we share with them their disappointment that, coming out of the pandemic, the global industry faltered due to the unprecedented challenges of re-starting after a two-year, virtual shutdown,” says Michael Rousseau, president and Chief Executive Officer of Air Canada. “Earlier this summer, I committed on behalf of everyone at Air Canada that we would do everything possible to restore our company’s industry-leading standards of customer care. Among other things, this included innovation at the airport, operational changes and significant schedule adjustments and today these are yielding demonstrable improvement in the metrics that matter most to our customers. While I am very satisfied with the progress to date, and I thank our employees for their unrelenting efforts, we all continue to work hard on behalf of our customers to complete our recovery.”

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