The John G. Diefenbaker Airport is seeing about 10 per cent of its daily flights impacted from either a shortage in airliner staff due to COVID-19 or weather.

That’s according to airport spokesperson, CJ Dushinski. She says the airport is seeing about one to 3 flights impacted each day.

“Right now, it’s kind of hard to say, the largest impact for flights in terms of scheduling for staffing has really been our non-stops to Edmonton and Winnipeg. Those seem to be ones that are seeing the most amounts of cancellations and it’s really a rolling schedule at this points. You know we get daily updates from the carriers on how they are managing their aircrafts and their allocations.”

Last week, WestJet announced they’re cancelling 15 per cent of the flights until the end of the month as the Calgary-based airliner is managing through a staff shortage due to COVID-19.

She adds potentially losing local airport staff due to COVID is something they’ll keep a close eye on.

“It’s certainly something that’s been impacting all industries and ours is no different. You know the airlines are only one part of the process, obviously you got things like security, baggage handling, we’ve got taxis, there’s a network of providers that really make up that total travel experience.”

Dushinski says within their internal staff at the Airport Authority, they have had positive cases, although she says they’ve been lucky enough to avoid what she would consider an outbreak.

With the return of Sunwing flights, the airport is seeing around 20 to 25 flights a day.