Advertisement

GTAA boss Howard Eng returns to criticism over Pearson’s eight-hour ground halt

GTAA boss Howard Eng returns to criticism over Pearson’s eight-hour ground halt

Operations at Toronto's Pearson International Airport slowly are getting back to normal but the fallout over its response to the severe cold weather event this week continues.

Questions have been raised about why Canada's busiest airport and a major hub for worldwide air travel wasn't better prepared for the rapid deep freeze.

The Toronto Star reports that the Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA) plans to keep secret its review of the so-called "ground halt" that threw airline schedules and individual travel plans into chaos.

Attention also has centred on the fact the boss of the GTAA's boss, Howard Eng, has been MIA since the crisis, apparently out of town on business.

GTAA officials have been on the defensive since closing the airport to incoming traffic for eight hours Tuesday, citing extreme cold – wind chill as low as -40 – that made operations difficult and posed a safety risk to workers on the tarmac.

[ Related: Pearson airport weather delays spill into 2nd day ]

Authority spokeswoman Sereen Daghstani told CP24 on Thursday staff were aware of the oncoming deep freeze but coping with the intense cold was a challenge.

"To the extent and to the extremity that it was, it was difficult to manage," Daghstani said, adding that GTAA officials, "were on full patrol of what was going on and understanding what the impact would be to operations."

But critics pointed to the fact other airports hit by the polar vortex – including Chicago's O'Hare and and New York's JFK and La Guardia airports – were able to stay open though many flights were cancelled or delayed. Other Canadian airports, such as those in Winnipeg and Edmonton, also routinely deal with extreme cold.

The Globe and Mail reported Air Canada declared its own operational ground stop about the same time as the GTAA made its call for other airlines.

Air Canada's decision was made “to prevent complete and utter gridlock,” Nick Careen, the carrier’s vice-president of airports, told the Globe. “We could see we were walking across a cliff.”

Toby Lennox, the GTAA's vice-president of strategy development, told the Globe operations slowed down as equipment became sluggish and crews were rotated to deal with the cold.

“Because of the volume that you deal with in a major international airport like Pearson, you do get more delays than you would at other airports," he said.

Lennox acknowledged officials knew the cold weather was coming.

"What was unexpected was the severity of the winds that picked up and the snow squalls that came through,” he said. “Weather changes and conditions change. You do everything that you can do to try to prepare for it.”

[ Related: Would Toronto really call in the army for storm cleanup again? ]

Critics of the shutdown may not have understood the impact of the rain and snow that fell Sunday and Monday, then flash froze on Tuesday when the cold swept in, officials told the Globe. The ice rendered in-ground fuel tanks inaccessible and froze some luggage conveyors moving baggage onto flights.

The airport authority routinely reviews extreme weather events' effects on operations but has always kept them secret, spokesman Scott Armstrong told the Star.

“We never have [made them public], and they are for internal purposes,” said Armstrong, who wouldn't say why the reviews are kept secret. “It’s a corporate decision.”

Eng has not commented publicly about the crisis at his airport. The Star said he had been in Edmonton, where his parents and daughter live, on a business trip and was expected to return Thursday. The paper said it was told previously he was out of the country.

Meanwhile, the backlog of thousands of stranded passengers was being cleared Thursday as flight schedules began returning to normal, CP24 said.