‘This country needs to fly’
The industry will adjust, says Ottawa airport CEO
OTTAWA — The Ottawa International Airport’s signature waterfall is now dry. The lights have been dimmed, the restaurants are closed, and the 850,000-square-foot terminal echoes with the footsteps of a few lonely passengers.
This is air travel in the time of COVID-19, the first pandemic of the jet age. On a typical day, the airport has 10 scheduled flights, most of them to Toronto, and processes about 200 departing passengers in a facility that normally accommodates 7,000.
Last year, 5.1 million people moved through the terminal, making Ottawa the sixthbusiest airport in the country. But the airport is unlikely to see that kind of passenger volume for years as airlines and travellers adjust to a new, virus-minded world.
“It’s not coming back like 2019,” airport authority chief executive Mark Laroche said in an interview. “That doesn’t mean there’s not going to be air travel; it just means it’s going to be different.”
Even if a vaccine is found for COVID-19, Laroche does not expect air travel to be the same after the pandemic: He believes airports will have to become more efficient and process passengers faster.
“It’s going to bring on change and it will be there way past two years, I’m convinced of it,” he said. “And that’s not necessarily a bad thing: There’s going to be innovation.”
In the short term, the Ottawa airport is preparing for the lifting of travel restrictions and the return of more passengers. But the travelling public’s experience promises to be considerably different.
Transport Canada has mandated the use of facemasks by all passengers and staff. Signs at the Ottawa airport will remind travellers of the need to wear masks and maintain distance from other people.
Floors will be marked with decals to give passengers a
“visual cue” to help them to stay two metres apart at check-in counters, restaurants, bank machines and taxi queues. Plexiglas shields will be installed at all service counters.
Each passenger will have to fill out a health questionnaire, and airlines will conduct preboarding temperature checks. Air Canada says anyone found with an elevated temperature (37.6 C or above) might have to obtain medical clearance to fly.
Meanwhile, the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority says anyone displaying COVID-19 symptoms will not be allowed through airport security into the departure lounge.
SAFETY ASSURANCE MEANS RECOVERY
Convincing travellers that airports and planes are safe represents a key element of the aviation industry’s recovery strategy. “All those procedures we see now are about risk management and about creating trust in the mind of the employees and the customers,” said Prof. Frederic Dimanche, director of Ryerson University’s Ted Rogers School of Hospitality and Tourism Management.
Surveys show, he said, that about 60 per cent of people in Canada and the U.S. are not prepared to fly right now.
“They want to be reassured — and that’s going to be the job of the airports, the airlines, all the operators.”
Dimanche also predicts that mergers, acquisitions and bankruptcies will roil the aviation sector as airlines adjust to the new economic landscape, and that passengers will pay the price of reduced passenger volumes, increased physical distancing and falling profit margins.
“Unfortunately, for us travellers, I think it will be more expensive to fly,” he said.
Earlier this month, Air Canada CEO Calin Rovinescu told a conference call that the airline is in “hibernation” as it awaits the return of travellers and the lifting of border restrictions. Canada’s largest airline lost $1 billion in the first fiscal quarter and has announced 20,000 layoffs.
“No adjectives can describe the pandemic’s effect on our industry,” he said.
Rovinescu predicted that domestic air travel will be the first to rebound, followed by U.S., then international destinations. But he expressed concern that the lucrative business market will be slow to recover to pre-pandemic levels since so many companies have grown accustomed to virtual meetings.
Across the country, passenger traffic is down by more than 90 per cent.