"We don't take cancellations lightly": Air Canada's Tom Stevens on navigating record T.O. snowstorm

De-icing timelines, snow plowing capacity and ground crew safety drove Air Canada's decision to cancel hundreds of flights ahead of Toronto's largest snowstorm on record over the weekend. 

Tom Stevens, VP customer experience and service operations at Air Canada, said the airline began making schedule adjustments last Tuesday as weather forecasts confirmed the severity of the approaching system.

Managing winter storm operations involves juggling multiple operational constraints simultaneously, Stevens explained. 

"When we go into a winter storm such as this, we're managing so many different factors: we're looking at the ability to keep the airfield operating, so how much snow plowing, for example, can be done," Stevens told PAX.

De-icing presents particular challenges during heavy snowfall. 

"Once an aircraft is de-iced, it has a certain amount of time they need to take off within," he said. 

"In the very heaviest moment of a snowstorm, there's no time between the de-icing being put on and the aircraft departing, so we end up cancelling flights."

Early cancellations and flexible rebooking

The airline began making those cancellations days before the storm hit. 

"The approach that Air Canada took to this event was to be very proactive," Stevens said. 

“When we saw this weather forecast last Tuesday, we started to make big schedule adjustments. It was the biggest snowstorm on record for Toronto, and so we took those cancellations early on."

Before the storm arrived, Air Canada implemented a flexible rebooking policy through its website and travel agent portals, encouraging customers to travel before or after Sunday's peak conditions. 

The policy is being updated as conditions evolve.

Stevens said the advance cancellations had a visible effect at airports on Sunday. 

"If you see any images from our airports yesterday, you don't see significant lineups of customers," he said. 

"Of course, our call centers were very busy. Our website was very busy. Our travel agent partners were very busy managing it, but by being proactive, we managed to keep those long lineups out of the airport."

Stevens emphasized that safety considerations drove every cancellation. 

"We don't take cancellations lightly," he said. 

"These cancellations were really put in on the grounds of safety, because it was unsafe to actually operate the flight due to the weather conditions at the airport, but also safe for our ground teams to work around those aircraft and to turn them safely."

The weather created network-wide complications, grounding aircraft at destinations far from the affected hubs.

"As a big, complicated, global airline, when something like this happens, we see disruption across our entire network," Stevens said. 

"Yesterday, at the height of the snowstorm, we had 71 of our aircraft parked in airports all around the world, from airports in Canada to as far away as Dubai, London and Frankfurt. Now, we're working to get all of those aircraft back in the sky to get the network turning again."

Recovery continues through the week

Recovery is complicated by ongoing weather impacts. 

"There are still a fair number of cancellations, not just because of us getting aircraft moving again, but a lot of our airports in the U.S. northeast continue to be really heavily impacted by the weather," Stevens said.

Most flights were expected to resume normal operations by Monday evening, though challenges remain. 

The polar vortex continues through the week, with wind chill factors reaching negative 25 degrees Celsius at Toronto Pearson—conditions that Steven says will continue to slow operations through Friday or Saturday.

"Today is a big day of recovery," Stevens said. 

"As we head into this afternoon and evening, we should see most of our flights moving again, and then you'll really see us operating most of the schedule for the remainder of the week."

Stevens says  the airline's full workforce is now focused on recovery. 

"Now you've got the collective power of all 40,000 people at Air Canada working closely together to get things moving once again.”

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