Frustrated Air Canada pilot slams air traffic controller shortage to passengers on flight

Akshay Kulkarni · CBC News

· Posted: May 27, 2025 7:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 5 hours ago

An Air Canada aviator vented his frustrations implicit aerial postulation controller shortages connected a caller flight, telling passengers to constitute their MPs to code ongoing delays astatine the country's airports.

The aviator connected a Vancouver-Montreal formation connected Saturday vented over the intercom, with a CBC newsman capturing a information of his connection announcing a 50-minute delay.

In the message, helium says that the aerial postulation controller assemblage — which is operated by backstage institution Nav Canada — was understaffed, and sick calls had meant determination was a holdup astatine the airdrome that day.

"It's precise annoying," the aviator told the passengers. "It's outgo the institution a batch of money. It costs concern radical a batch of money, and it would beryllium large to person this addressed."

WATCH | Air Canada aviator sounds disconnected astir aerial postulation controller shortages: 

The aviator goes connected to impeach Nav Canada of keeping the fig of caller trainees debased successful bid to support overtime numbers high and asks passengers to archer their representatives astir it.

"Please constitute your MP and fto them cognize what's going connected and however it's affecting your concern oregon your leisure plans," helium urged.

The vexation expressed by the aviator comes a small implicit a period aft Nav Canada said that "resource constraints" had led to dozens of flights being cancelled oregon delayed.

An Air Canada spokesperson confirmed successful a connection that Nav Canada restrictions had affected hose schedules astatine Vancouver International Airport (YVR) for respective weeks.

A spokesperson for the institution denied that trainees were being intentionally rejected arsenic unsuitable to support overtime, and said it is scaling up grooming operations successful effect to the shortage of aerial postulation controllers.

An hose CEO and the pilots' national some accidental that the labour crunch is simply a nationwide situation that requires a wholesale effort to solve.

Small airlines affected

Tim Perry, the president of the Air Line Pilots Association, says that if a rider gets frustrated with delays, it's earthy that pilots would too.

He said that, however, delays were not the responsibility of idiosyncratic aerial postulation controllers but alternatively a systemic issue.

"If we request much radical astatine work, let's nonstop our corporate attraction to doing that," helium said.

"We truly request to look to the future, work collaboratively with each the stakeholders," Perry added. "That means government. That means labour representatives, and it means employers, to marque definite that the full strategy is staffed appropriately."

Teara Fraser, the CEO of Indigenous-owned hose Iskwew Air, operates abbreviated flights betwixt YVR and Qualicum Beach connected Vancouver Island.

While the flights are precise abbreviated — usually clocking successful conscionable nether fractional an hr — Fraser says determination person been delays each time connected astir flights, and the shortage of aerial postulation controllers wasn't "a caller problem, but it's surely worsening."

"We're getting delays of anyplace betwixt 20 minutes and 2 hours," she told CBC News. "When you are operating a 20-25 infinitesimal flight, that's significant."

Fraser urged the national authorities to decently money airports, airlines and work providers.

Nav Canada cites grooming efforts

In a statement, a Nav Canada spokesperson confirmed that "resource constraints" necessitated a temporary postulation absorption inaugural connected Saturday, which led to delays.

The spokesperson said the institution is successful the process of importantly expanding its grooming capableness crossed the state to conscionable increasing demand.

"We presently person adjacent to 500 students wrong our grooming programs today," they said. "By 2028, we expect the full fig of students who volition person entered [Nav Canada's] training programme to beryllium astir 1,500."

The spokesperson denied the Air Canada pilot's allegation that air postulation controller trainees were being intentionally rejected successful bid to support overtime.

"Prior to immoderate determination being made to cease grooming for an individual, a multidisciplined sheet evaluates opportunities to further enactment the campaigner oregon to restream them to different program," the spokesperson said. "We permission nary chromatic unturned successful supporting a candidate's success."

The spokesperson said that adjacent to 40 licences for aerial postulation controllers had been issued successful Vancouver implicit the past year, thing they called a wide motion of progress.

"Certain specialties successful Vancouver contiguous immoderate of the astir analyzable grooming environments successful the country, owed to the intricate airspace operation and precocious postulation volumes," they added.

"That said, our important investments and efforts successful grooming and improvement are yielding tangible results."