Regina airport not seeing same issues as major hubs

While airports across the country deal with cancellations and delays, the Regina airport so far hasn’t been fending off the same issues.

However, Regina Airport Authority president and CEO James Bogusz said the airport did have one day last week where it experienced some turbulence.

“Compared to a major hub city like Toronto or Vancouver or Calgary, we’ve had a much smaller impact here,” he said. “Our worst day was on June 30, where we saw a number of sudden cancellations. We had five or six departing flights cancelled. Over the weekend, though, it was fairly minimal.”

Bogusz couldn’t comment on why those flights were cancelled last week as it is an airline matter. He suggested more than 100 people would’ve been impacted by those decisions.

While the airport had a rough day last Thursday, Bogusz said it did receive some potentially positive news over the weekend about future cancellations.

“Air Canada did announce their temporary schedule suspensions. We didn’t see Regina mentioned there over the weekend, but we’re very mindful that as this evolves, Air Canada or WestJet will need to make some schedule adjustments to meet demand,” he explained.

Bogusz added the biggest problem the airport has faced is travellers missing their connection back home and not getting their bags for several days.

“What’s been really troublesome is many are coming home and not necessarily having their baggage on the same flight they’ve arrived on,” he said. “We’ve been hearing a lot about that. I’ve heard stories right from customers in some cases (are waiting) four or five days.”

Bogusz encourages those travelling right now to not check a bag if they don’t have to. If they do have to check a bag, he recommends they make sure they have the tracking number given to them by the airline.

“Make sure you save that baggage claim ticket,” he said. “It’s that bar code you get. It’s very important because we have heard a number of issues.”

Bogusz suggests these issues we’re seeing will likely last for another month because of the volume of people travelling this summer and airports getting used to life with fewer COVID-19 restrictions.

“Airline staffing has also been cited as a concern. It has only been in the past few weeks that we’ve seen this type of capacity being needed,” Bogusz said.

“Back in January this year, we were only at 30 per cent (capacity). When I look at my raw data in two weeks, we could be pushing over 75 per cent (capacity). That is a massive change in six months.

“(Delays are) going to be here for the next few weeks at least.”