A Nunavut teen, who is also an avid social media supporter of Air Canada, has launched a petition urging the federal government to give airlines more financial support to cope with the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. Zoe Elverum, a Grade 12 student in Pond Inlet, Nunavut, said in a release sent to aviation media that while airlines have been able to cushion the financial blow by using the government’s emergency Covid-19 programs, they won’t be enough to keep the carriers afloat. “Some airlines have already had some support from the government, as well as benefited from the wage subsidy, many airline employees have applied for the CERB or EI,” she said in an email appeal to Canadian aviation media. “But as we may have all seen, it has not been enough.”
Those programs will end soon and airlines will have to lay off even more of their employees as they fly at less than 10 percent of their normal capacity. Elverum doesn’t make specific suggestions on the form the federal aid might take but her petition has gathered more than 16,000 signatures. Elverum is raising interest on her own through her Instagram account, in which she goes by the name Zoe the Air Canada Fangirl.