Labour shortage still a big factor for fewer flights in northeastern Ontario

Mary Bishop, of Espanola, Ont., is retired and loves to travel. But the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have made that more difficult.

In November Bishop booked a cruise to San Diego, but ended up stranded at the Sudbury Airport overnight because her connecting flight to Toronto was cancelled. 

Her next adventure will be in Portugal, but she plans to take the bus to Toronto to avoid any potential headaches at the regional airport.

In the summer she also had two friends scheduled to arrive at the Sudbury Airport on the same day. One was coming from San Diego, and the other was flying in from Montreal.

Bishop's friend from Montreal did not arrive on time.

"When she got to the gate to go to Sudbury, they had just closed the gate and they wouldn't let her on the plane," Bishop said. "So they ended up paying for a hotel for her overnight in Toronto."

Jean-Mathieu Chenier, the director of terminal and land development at the Sudbury Airport, said the number of flights to the airport did increase in 2022, but they are not yet at 2019 levels. He expects that to happen by 2024.

"The challenge that the airlines are facing, and this is everywhere, is just being able to ramp back up and bring on enough personnel to be able to handle the demand that's out there," he said.

Chenier said Air Canada now has two flights per day at the airport, while Porter offers one flight per day, but ramped up to two over the Christmas holidays. Sunwing has also returned to the airport with occasional flights.

But Chenier said Bearskin Airlines, a smaller airline that offers regional flights within northeastern Ontario, has been the first to approach its 2019 levels.

Terry Bos, the president and CEO of the Sault Ste. Marie Airport Development Corporation, said the situation has been similar there.

While the situation improved in 2022, Bos said the airport currently has between 50 and 60 per cent the number of flights it had before the pandemic.

Bos said staffing remains an issue that's holding airlines back from reaching their previous capacity.

"It's not a simple switch to bring back a pilot, or air traffic controller, or even an airplane," he said. 

"They have to go through checks, and pilots and these specialized people have to go through recurrency training and checkouts and all that. So it was never going to be possible to switch the industry right back to where it was."

Bos said they have seen some pent up demand for leisure travel pick up, but business travel has not returned to previous levels.

He said he expects passenger levels to reach around 70 per cent of previous demand this year, and to increase to 80 per cent in 2024.

"At the end of the day, until the business travel starts to come back, and the government travel, it's going to be difficult to get back to the levels we were pre pandemic," Bos said.

John Gradek, a lecturer at McGill University's aviation management program, said there are precedents where provincial governments have incentivized airlines to increase their level of service at smaller airports.

He said the Winnipeg James Armstrong Richardson International Airport, for example, had flights to Los Angeles two days per week, but was able to switch to daily flights thanks to a provincial subsidy.

If the province were interested in making the investment, Gradek said incentives of $500,000 or less could increase the frequency of flights to Toronto, from Sudbury or Sault Ste. Marie. 

Gradek added airports like the Region of Waterloo International Airport have done a good job at attracting smaller airlines like Flair Airlines.

"The other option is basically to chase down some established carriers that are in the area and to see whether they would be interested in looking at increased levels of service with turboprop airplanes that are, you know, 30, 40, 50-seat airplanes," Gradek said.