Canadian airline calls for lifting hotel quarantines
Restrictions are forcing Canadians to forego travel and the airline industry is suffering losses.
Canada's largest airline, Air Canada, is asking federal authorities to ease restrictions on inbound travellers. The company suffered a loss of $1.3 billion CAD in the first quarter of 2021, but hopes to recover from the pandemic.
"Mandatory hotel quarantine for inbound arrivals is ineffective," states Michael Russo, Air Canada's CEO. — It should be abolished.
Currently, all travellers who fly in from abroad must spend up to 3 days in one of the quarantine hotels to prevent the spread of COVID-19. But this doesn't always work — for example, a man from Toronto is certain that he was infected at the hotel.
"We believe the vaccination program now in place across the country will change testing and quarantine regulations to keep Canadians safe and reopen borders to international travel," Russo says.
Air Canada expects domestic flights to rebound soon, with increased demand for transatlantic flights despite restrictions. The airline predicts that flights to Europe will peak in September and October, rather than July and August like before the pandemic. Business travel, on the other hand, is likely to return later, when people stop working remotely.
The company also said they have high demand for flights to Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Hawaii and Florida for next winter — Canadians are already planning their vacations after the pandemic.
Last month, the airline managed to negotiate a $5.9 billion CAD bailout with the government, including refunds to passengers for cancelled flights, but demand for refunds is lower than expected. The airline's traffic is down 89.5% year-on-year.
Canada's borders with other countries remain closed. The government says it is currently discussing introducing vaccination passports to resume travel to Europe.
