Constraints, weather still impacting flights at Pearson

OTTAWA — While air traffic control constraints ended a little after midnight, but Canada’s busiest airport is still experiencing significant delays on Boxing day.

Just after 6 pm on Christmas Day, NAV Canada — the federal agency responsible for the country’s air traffic control services — issued a notice on social media warning of possible delays.

ATC shortage continues to impact flights

“Delays affecting flights in YYZ due to NAV Canada resource constraints,” read a social media post from Nav Canada.

“Our team is moving aircraft safely, and as quickly as possible. Passengers: check the status of your flight with your airline. We regret any impacts to airlines and their passengers.”

Canada, much like the United States, is dealing with a shortage of qualified air traffic controllers, prompting airports across Canada to periodically close throughout 2025 due to manpower constraints.

Canada’s busiest airports have had to deal with delays and cancellations due to staffing shortfalls throughout this year, delaying flights and causing travelling angst.

Toronto, Ottawa among world’s most delayed airports on Friday

As of Friday morning, both Toronto and Ottawa’s international airports saw significant delays, with departures at Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier International AIrport ranking the world’s 5th most delayed airport according to online flight tracker FlightRadar24, seeing an average of a 45 minute delay.

That’s a better score than Mumbai Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport in India and Chicago O’Hare, but better than Kuala Lumpur to Poland’s Warsaw Chopin Airport — which on Friday was seeing departure delays of over 60 minutes.

Departure delays at Toronto Pearson continued to improve, down to a little over 30 minutes by mid-Friday morning — largely due to lineups at the airport’s deicing plant.

Toronto Pearson are seeing relatively few delays for arrivals, with less than a five-minute delay.
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