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(Update)
Although flight schedules are starting to get back on track at Pearson Airport there continue to be some delays and cancellations tonight. The extreme cold led to the ongoing frustrations at the airport. But it had little to do with the planes and more to do with the ground conditions and equipment that’s simply not made to handle such frigid temperatures.
Travelers didn’t have to wait long to check in at Pearson International Airport on this Thursday afternoon. A drastic difference from earlier in the week when lines seemed to go on forever and people slept over at the airport waiting for their flight.
Shereen Daghstani is with the Greater Toronto Airport Association: “We are reporting about three per cent cancellations so we are up and fully running.”
On Tuesday, all air travel ground to a halt at Pearson for technical and safety reasons. It’s not the airplanes themselves that have problems in cold weather. They are used to flying at altitudes where it’s minus 60. It’s the equipment that services the planes on the runway that have trouble operating in the deep freeze.
Dave Rohrer is an Aviation Consultant: “A lot of the equipment, the conveyer belts, electrical connections, hydraulics, air powered machinery, all of that gets really challenged in -40 weather. So all you have to do is have a breakdown in one of those systems and then it cascades.”
Rohrer is a former Transport Canada airplane crash investigator and says he agrees with the decision to shut down air travel this week. “I am an ex-airforce pilot and even the airforce in the western provinces in -40 the base would shut down because of the welfare of the personnel.”
The air travel stoppage here at Pearson Tuesday left a lot of people waiting on planes for hours just to get to the gate. When they arrived, they tried to get their luggage and had to wait even longer. A lot of people decided to just go home without it. And this is the result. Lines and lines of bags waiting at the airport to be sorted and then claimed.”
Now airlines like Air Canada have brought in extra staff to sort and deliver bags. But the backlog had travelers arriving today shocked. Jamie Melville flew in today with no problems: “Well, I asked what happened and she said because of all the missed connections. I have never seen luggage pile up before that’s amazing.”
Lynn Belvin flew in from Quebec today: “Saw bags everywhere. Usually you see all people right, but yeah, there were just bags everywhere.”
Air Canada made this statement: “At this point, we ask that customers be patient. Normally, we do ask people to fill out a form at the airport but during the storm we did not do this as it would have simply created more line-ups and congestion (we are now back to more normal operations and customers currently travelling should be doing this again now). We do have contact information and will be following up to make deliveries this way. As I mentioned, we intend to deliver delayed bags over the next few days.”
