Canadian North sees higher demand in flights but faces staffing shortage, cancelled flights

A shortage of staff at Canadian North Airlines has been causing some flight disruptions.

More people have been traveling since COVID-19 travel restrictions were eased in August for fully vaccinated travellers and this has meant more bookings on Canadian North. But the airline has also had to cancel some flights due to a staff shortage.

With more flights, the company couldn't recruit enough crew members to keep up with the demand, said Kevin Kablutsiak, with Canadian North Airlines.

"We weren't able to increase crew numbers as fast because it requires training and can take up to three months to train new crew members to work our flights," he said.

The airline, which provides air service across Inuit Nunangat, the N.W.T. and some locations in the South, has been playing catch up after it had to decrease service when the pandemic started. Around that time, Kablutsiak said the airline had to lay some people off in positions mostly related to "non-essential work areas" of the company.

"At the start of the pandemic, we saw a huge decrease in the number of passengers flying our aircraft. So we have had to make adjustments to the frequency of those flights," he said.

"All essential employees, customer service agents, flight crew, pilots, cargo attendants, all of those remain."