NAV Canada Celebrates a Summer Season with Far Fewer Delays
by Bruce Parkinson
With the summer peak travel season over, NAV CANADA is reporting a sharp year-over-year improvement in service delivery, resulting in far fewer flight delays than the year prior period.
“In May, we said our team was ready. In July, the results showed they were. Today we can say they upheld that standard through the most demanding stretch of the year,” said Marie-Pier Berman, VP and Chief of Operations at NAV CANADA.
“Our teams at Canada’s major airports delivered approximately 85% fewer NAV CANADA-attributable delays compared to the same period last year. NAV CANADA’s air traffic controllers, flight service specialists and support teams across the country stepped up, shift after shift, and the credit is theirs.”
From May 1 to August 31, the share of scheduled flights impacted by a traffic management initiative where NAV CANADA staffing or equipment was a factor fell close to 85% year over year across Toronto Pearson, Montréal-Trudeau, Calgary and Vancouver international airports. The proportion of scheduled flights impacted fell from 1.54% in 2025 to 0.24% in 2026.
Each of the four airports recorded an improvement. The largest absolute gain was at Vancouver International Airport, where the share of impacted scheduled flights fell from 4.42% in 2025 to 0.64% in 2026, and the largest proportional improvement was at Calgary International Airport, from 1.16% to 0.05%.
NAV Canada says these gains are not a function of quieter skies. The four airports handled 394,919 flights between May 1 and August 31, compared with 391,245 over the same period in 2025, representing a small increase of 0.9 per cent.
The results reflect the fact that there are more air traffic services professionals in the system than at any point since the pandemic, thanks to the temporary return of staff working in non-operational positions to frontline duties, continued contracts with more than 50 rehired retired controllers, and technology investments such as Arrival Manager systems at all Area Control Centres.
Since 2023, more than 600 air traffic services professionals have qualified, and NAV CANADA’s training schools continue to run at record capacity.
These efforts also narrowed the controller staffing gap over the season, to approximately 170 controllers below target as of August 31, from approximately 200 in the spring. The training pipeline remains the core of NAV CANADA’s staffing strategy, with newly licensed controllers continuing to qualify.
“A season like this one is not a finish line,” said Berman. “The staffing rebuild continues, the fall and winter bring their own demands, and readiness has never meant promising that no disruption will ever occur. It means having the people, processes and technology to manage whatever comes, safely and transparently. This summer, our people showed what that looks like.”
