Here are some new travel bits from today’s news, as well as a recap of some items from earlier this week that you might have missed. Canada’s Travel Guy, at your service. PORTER AIRLINES TRIMS SCHEDULE The Globe and Mail today reports that Toronto-based Porter Airlines has made “extensive” cuts to its flight schedule. The airline in the last couple months has with great fanfare announced a series of new routes on its new Embraer jets, including Toronto-Calgary and Toronto-Vancouver. I spotted airline founder Bob Deluce at Toronto Pearson a few weeks ago and he said more big announcements Read more
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I’m not sure what this means for travel and tourism, but it can’t hurt Canadian efforts to lure more American visitors – and American dollars – north of the border. A new poll by Angus Reid finds that Canadians are more unified than Americans in viewing their country as a caring and safe place to call home, and a positive contributor to the globe. Overall, four-in-five Canadians (78%) say their country is a caring society. Only one-in-three Americans say the same (36%). Nine-in-ten north of the 49th parallel say they live in a safe country (89%), while half as many Read more
Canada’s passport application backlog has been ‘completely eliminated,’ one of the top ministers in the Trudeau government says. CTV News reports tat Families, Children and Social Development Minister Karina Gould this week said that service times for passport applications are back to pre-pandemic standards, after the backlog ballooned last summer. Canadians looking to renew their passports last summer found long wait lines and lengthy delays, an issue that passport officials said was due to a huge spike in demand for travel as COVID travel restrictions began to ease. The CBC reports that Canadians waiting anxiously for their passports to arrive before Read more
U.S. News magazine recently came out with a list of the best world destinations for solo travel. To my surprise, Toronto was the only Canadian city on the list of 33 destinations. I would’ve thought more Canadian cities, which are relatively safe, would make the list. That goes especially for Vancouver, with its natural beauty and great food scene, and Montreal, with its wonderful neighborhoods and French joie de vivre. Shows what I know. Anyhow, here are the destinations that made the list. California came away with three entries. Beaver Creek, Colorado Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands Paris San Diego Rome Read more
The number of air passenger complaints to Canada’s transport regulator has more than tripled over the past year, soaring past 42,000 as of this month, Canadian Press reports. Complaints totalled about 13,400 as of March 31, 2022, before skyrocketing to unprecedented highs in the ensuing 12 months, according to Canadian Transportation Agency reports. They hit 36,000 in late January, and rose by another 17 per cent since then. Ottawa recently announced $75.9 million in new funding to help deal with the backlog. Canadian Press reports another $11 million was given to the CTA last year, and that the number of Read more
