The U.S. on Wednesday announced new COVID-19 testing requirements for all travelers from China. But Canada has yet to follow suit. Starting January 5, all travelers to the U.S. from China, Macau and Hong Kong will need to take a COVID-19 test no more than two days before travel and provide a negative test before boarding their flight. The testing applies to anyone two years and older, the CBC reports. Other countries made the move before the U.S., but Canada has yet to take similar action. A spokesperson for Transport Minister Omar Alghabra, said Canada is monitoring COVID-19 case numbers Read more
Omar Alghabra
Frightful weather notwithstanding, Santa Claus has been cleared to glide through Canadian air space on Christmas Day. Federal Minister of Transport Omar Alghabra today said he’s pleased to announce that he has cleared Santa and his reindeer flight crew for take-off in Canadian airspace. In a secure message to Alghabra earlier this week, Santa confirmed that he completed his final test flight of the year and checked that he and the reindeer showed no signs of COVID-19 symptoms before take-off. Earlier this month, Transport Canada Safety Inspectors cleared Santa’s sleigh for travel. The Inspectors conducted their stringent safety, communications, and Read more
The Canadian government today announced an expanded agreement between Canada and India that will allow designated airlines to operate an unlimited number of flights between the two countries. The previous agreement limited each country to 35 flights per week. This significant move will allow airlines of Canada and India to better respond to the needs of the Canada-India air transport market. The new rights under the expanded agreement are available for use by airlines immediately. “The expanded air transport agreement between Canada and India is a positive development for air transport relations between our countries,” said Canadian Transport Minister Omar Read more
The Trudeau government says it’s making progress on passport and airport delays, but it admits there’s a lot of work to do. Federal government ministers put out a statement today saying that it’s hired more than 700 new staff for passport offices and hired 1,800 more security screening officers at airports. It also said it’s decreasing flight delays,cancellations and baggage woes, and that the average wait times at the passport call centre have significantly decreased from a peak of 108 minutes earlier this spring to 24 minutes as of August 21. “With this surge in passport requests and significant delays Read more
The Canadian Minister of Transport, Omar Alghabra, will have to testify about Canada’s continuing airport congestion and other travel problems in the next ten days or so. The House of Commons Transport Committee held an emergency meeting on Monday to debate Conservative transport critic Melissa Lantsman’s request to have the minister, a key member of the Justin Trudeau Cabinet, appear “for no fewer than two hours and answer questions about flight delays and cancellations at Toronto Pearson and other Canadian airports. The Lantsman motion was approved unanimously. Alghabra also has been asked to talk about the government’s unpopular ArriveCAN app, Read more
