Proceedings of the Subcommittee on
Transportation Safety
Issue 1 - Evidence - November 5 meeting
OTTAWA, Wednesday, November 5, 1997
The Subcommittee on Transportation Safety of the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications met this day at 5:01 p.m. to study the state of transportation safety and security in Canada.
Senator J. Michael Forrestall (Chairman) in the Chair.
[English]
The Chairman: Honourable senators, our mandate is the study of the state of transportation safety and security in Canada.
We are very pleased to have with us tonight Mr. John Crichton and Mr. Jack Squires from the Air Transport Association of Canada as part of our ongoing dialogue.
Mr. John. W. Crichton, President and Chief Executive Officer, Air Transport Association of Canada: We are pleased to be here to speak to some of the topical issues relating to the safety of commercial air transportation in Canada.
I would like to take a minute to explain the role and objectives of the Air Transport Association of Canada, or ATAC as it is frequently known. ATAC is the national service organization for the Canadian commercial air transport industry. Current membership of ATAC accounts for over 95 per cent of the commercial aviation revenues generated in Canada.
The association's policies are determined by the membership as represented by the elected board of directors. Executive action, as directed by the board, and the administration of the association are vested in the president and the ATAC staff all headquartered here in Ottawa.
The objectives of the association include: the provision of safe and reliable air transportation of people and goods to the benefit of Canadian society through the maintenance of professional operating standards and sound business practices by our members; the promotion and protection of the interests of the commercial air transport industry and the encouragement of a fair and reasonable regulatory environment that will result in safe, efficient and competitive aviation services; and constructive consultation and cooperation with all levels of governmental regulatory authorities and other bodies seeking the advancement or improvement of commercial aviation.
From this I am sure committee members will realize that ATAC has a strong vested interest in working to enhance safety in commercial air service operations.
The design and manufacture of airplanes has progressed over the years to a point where aircraft propulsion systems and other aircraft components have now reached a very high level of quality and reliability. Seldom now do we have accidents caused by failures of the machine or its parts, as compared to the early days of aviation. In referring to the early days, I would include the post-Second World War period prior to the wide introduction of large, jet transport aircraft.
Current international aircraft accident statistics for scheduled passenger operations using turbine powered aircraft show a very low accident rate, and Canada enjoys one of the best safety records in the world in this regard. Even though we are experiencing these impressive improvements in aircraft accident rates and can point to very good safety records, accidents nevertheless do happen. However, these accidents are more often attributable nowadays to human-factor causes rather than the failure of the machine itself.
In recognition of this problem, our operator members and the regulatory authorities have embarked upon a major undertaking to address the human-factors issues.
Training standards for pilots and flight attendants now require that these groups participate together in crew resource management training programs. Subject matter in this type of training includes: attitude and behaviours, communications skills, problem solving, conflict resolution, and decision making. This type of training contributes to team building and distributing work loads, particularly in crisis situations, and addresses the possibility of human factors that could result in deficiencies which may affect safety. Other training programs for flight crews ensure that crews are well-qualified and sufficiently skilled to conduct flight operations in a highly safe manner.
In August this year, ATAC participated with aviation safety regulatory representatives and others who have a genuine concern regarding human-factors issues in an international seminar entitled "Technology and the Flight Deck". This conference was held in Vancouver concurrent with Air Show Canada and the Abbotsford International Air Show. ATAC was one of the five supporting organizations that helped to develop and present this seminar. Participants focused on what many believe is the most important safety question facing us today: Have we inadvertently complicated the flight crew's role by imposing additional and excessive work load with the introduction of new technology?
Attendance at this seminar was very impressive, with representatives coming from many of the large international airlines from all over the world. In addition, representatives from aircraft and aviation equipment manufacturers and from foreign civil aviation regulatory and investigative bodies also participated.
The discussion centred on the need for widespread awareness of the problems and benefits related to new flight deck technology and to minimize conditions that lead to undesirable human-factor situations. Presentations pointed to the need for users to work with manufacturers on an ongoing basis to create better designs for cockpit presentation of flight and navigational equipment and data.
Participants recognized the potential benefits from a new technology only now coming to market: enhanced ground proximity warning systems. This equipment has a built-in world terrain data base which warns pilots against possible collision with the ground and, in some cases, even with man-made obstructions. We believe this equipment will eventually become routinely used by commercial air operators and that it will go a long way toward reducing the risk of controlled-flight-into-terrain accidents.
In summary, all of the participants recognized that, although the commercial air service industry has reached the position whereby there is a very low accident rate, efforts must be made to reduce it even further. As air travel grows, there will be more airplanes flying, and if the accident rate is not reduced there will be more airplanes involved in accidents. This eventuality is unacceptable to all of us in the aviation industry.
On October 10 of last year, a new era in aviation safety regulation in Canada commenced with the promulgation of the Canadian Aviation Regulations. In industry circles we refer to these as the CARs. A number of benefits will be realized over time as a result of this new regulatory approach.
The CARs recognize the individual needs of the different sectors of the aviation community, are in step with technological changes, can be conveniently accessed and used as working documents, and are constructed in a manner that will allow dynamic changes taking place in aviation to be reflected in the rules without lengthy delays.
I would like to refer to a few specific issues within the CARs that are of keen interest to a number of groups. One of these is the issue of pilot flight- and duty-time limitations. An initial review of this subject commenced in 1990 when the Minister of Transport formed an advisory committee to examine the subject. The examination took place on the basis of four criteria: that Canadian regulations must reflect Canadian needs; that past experience does not necessarily reflect the existence of a major problem with the present system; that flight safety issues should not be confused with labour relations and economic issues; and that safety is good business. The recommendations of the minister's advisory committee were not put in place because of the objections of one of the participants.
The issue was again studied in 1993 under the Canadian Aviation Regulatory Advisory Council = or CARAC -- process. During this process, final rules were put in place last October at the same time as the CARs were introduced. These new regulations require reductions in the maximum monthly flight times and flight duty times. They also increase the number of rest periods and the number of hours assigned to those rest periods. Furthermore, new provisions are included which limit the number of hours a pilot might fly weekly and which require employers to assign additional off-duty periods to pilots on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. Other new restrictions are included respecting pilot reserve positions, long-range flights and flight crew positioning.
I draw your attention to these new provisions to indicate that the new CARs on this subject address, realistically, in our assessment, any reasonable pilot fatigue concern.
We believe that the overall regulations encompassing flight and duty times, as well as required rest provisions, compare very favourably to rules on this subject as presented by the civil aviation authorities of other states.
Another specific issue within the CARs relates to the new Canadian regulatory requirement for airlines to introduce flight dispatch organizations. Specifically trained and certified flight dispatchers are now required to share responsibility with pilots in command for the operational control of flights and for flight watch duties while the flights are in progress. This is a major undertaking for many airlines which did not have such facilities in place before the CARs.
The use of flight dispatchers frees up the pilot to devote more of his or her concentration to the dynamic activities of the flight, with confidence that the flight dispatch organization will alert the pilot of any impending changes in the weather or with respect to the navigational facilities being used or insofar as the aircraft's flight plan requirements are concerned. This results in a substantial contribution to safety inasmuch as pilots need not be tasked with many routine and time-consuming activities involved with planning flights and with regard to flight watch during the en route phase of flight. It should be noted that compliance with this new safety regulation is a high-cost activity to the airlines but one we recognize as beneficial to safety.
A final comment I should make regarding a specific element of the CARs concerns the new rule requiring air carriers conducting airline operations to develop and implement a flight safety program which meets the commercial air service standards. The elements of the safety program called for in the standards require that there be a management plan to administer the program. The company must designate a qualified safety person with specifically stated responsibilities. A system of managing incidents experienced by the company is to be established. A flight safety committee must be set up, and the company must develop an emergency response plan that can be put in place when and if an operator experiences a major aircraft emergency. In addition, the program requires the company to put communication and safety educational exchanges in place. This requirement for a flight safety program is a major new initiative which addresses the need for air carriers to highlight the subject of safety within their operations. We believe these requirements will enhance safety.
The last issue I should like to address is the new regulatory organizational structure that Transport Canada has recently put in place.
In 1995, at Transport Canada's request, ATAC participated over a period of one and one-half years as a stakeholder in consultations regarding how the department might best be structured to undertake its revised responsibilities. Our recommendation was that Transport Canada's line of authority and control within the air mode be established on the basis of a centralized structure. Our reasoning was, and is, that this kind of an organization would contribute to a consistent application of regulations and standards on a national basis, resulting in better safety in the system. We suggested that the tendency of Transport Canada to move to a decentralized, autonomous regional office concept with five regional heads would not be conducive to consistency and accountability in its regulatory oversight role. We recommended that these factors of consistency and accountability, which are so important from an airline perspective, be exercised through a reporting relationship that would require the regions to report to a national headquarters organization. This has not been done. Our recommendations were not acted on, and we continue to see the problems we identified at the outset.
ATAC continues to believe that better regulatory oversight and consequently enhanced aviation safety would be realized with a more centralized structure within the air mode at Transport Canada.
Mr. Chairman, I thank you again for having given us the opportunity to make this presentation, and my colleague Mr. Squires and I would be more than happy to try to answer any questions the committee may have.
The Chairman: Thank you. Would you like to add something, Mr. Squires?
Mr. Jack Squires, Vice-President, Flight Operations, Air Transport Association of Canada: I think Mr. Crichton has given you a good summary of the position we take on the main issues with respect to safety, particularly in airline operations. If you want to discuss any of them further, or any other issue related to safety, we would be happy to try to respond.
The Chairman: You mention on page 5 of your brief that most of the accidents are caused by human error. While we were in Washington earlier this year, we heard evidence of a cooperative or collegial method of operating aircraft. Is this what we are getting at through CARs, with the concept of the pilot being in command but not in command, and that it is a team effort from every soul on board that aircraft and everyone on the ground supporting it and its transit?
You have no doubt heard of President Clinton's bet. Can we hold the line as the number of aircraft increases so dramatically, doubling and then doubling again? We are talking about fairly big numbers.You seem fairly happy with this route, but perhaps you might elaborate on that from that perspective. We have been told that it is possible, but anything is possible. Talk to us a bit about this collegial approach, with the pilot knowing that someone will tell him if he is in trouble or whether he should skirt around a thunder storm or something. Do you think there is merit in it?
Mr. Crichton: Yes, Mr. Chairman, very much. Cockpit resource management training has really come into its own over the last 10 years. It is a very new concept but one that has been proven. As you say, the pilot in command is in command, but an entire program is developed around the concept of team work in the cockpit and the ability to detect unsafe situations and to be able to get the crew to respond as a team. That grew out of a series of accidents that, upon investigation, showed there was a breakdown in communication or of the old structures of command which contributed to an accident. There is much variance on that, and it is becoming a very sophisticated technique now with the coordination between the front-end crew and the back-end crew. We learned many lessons from the Dryden accident, where there was snow on the wings and the flight attendants had concerns about talking to the air crew, and so on. A whole program of training is now mandatory to ensure that that kind of communication takes place.
As mentioned, the volume of aviation flights is growing. Unless the accident rate is reduced, it will have a higher multiplier. I am sure that everyone has heard the prediction that, in about 10 years, if we keep the same accident rate, there will be one major crash per week in the world. The aviation industry, both in Canada and internationally, is absolutely committed to reducing that rate drastically.
Where do you focus?The focus is in the human-factors area and in what is known in the air traffic control business as the CHI, the computer-human interface between the pilot and the systems on board the airplane. The irony of having highly sophisticated aircraft is that we are beginning to experience some accidents where the automation itself has either fooled the pilot or misled him into believing something was happening the right way when in fact it was not. There is a great deal of concentration on that, including work to bring the airlines and the flight operations department into sync with the manufacturers building the aircraft and the science of constructing aircraft systems and the cockpit displays in such a way to try to eliminate those problems as much as possible. Those are our areas of concentration because they are the areas in which we are detecting most of those accidents with large transport aircraft. If we can get that under control, we will get the accident rate down.
The Chairman: I am trying to visualize the concept. Are you suggesting that the dispatcher on the ground who handles pre-flight will follow that flight right through?
Mr. Crichton: Yes.
The Chairman: Is he monitoring onboard instrumentation or is there an independent source?
Mr. Crichton: It depends on the nature of the flight, the type of airline and the area in which they are operating. Some of the larger airlines have satellite links with continuous reporting. Some of the regional carriers, for instance, will depend on the air traffic control system for contact. There is HF radio. There is a wide variety of ways in the system to allow dispatch authority to know where the airplane is at all times and any changes that it may encounter, or changes in flight itinerary that it may want to pass on to the aircraft.
The Chairman: Will you walk us through an automatic landing, please? How was that decision made a year ago and how is it made today?
Mr. Squires: Automatic landings will be part of aircraft operation more in the future than it has been up until now. That is primarily because automatic landings will be required if an airplane wishes to land in conditions of extremely low visibility. It has only been since December of last year that Canada has had the capability of what we call category three approach and landing. We have one runway at Toronto and one runway at Vancouver.
The Chairman: Does Halifax have one?
Mr. Squires: No, Halifax is category two. We have eight category two runways in Canada. However, we have only two category three runways.
On a category two approach, the pilot may choose the option of doing a manual landing or an automatic landing, if his airplane is equipped and certified to do that. In order to do it, specialized equipment is required and more than one autopilot is necessary. Usually the airplanes which do these automatic landings have two or three autopilots. They have comparative analysis so that one does not get out of sync. If that happens, the pilot is given a signal so that he can do something differently, either discontinue the approach or disconnect the autopilot.
Insofar as the physical aspect of the automatic landing is concerned, the pilot does not have his hands on the wheel, his feet on the rudders, or his hand on the little stick if it is an Airbus. He monitors the approach and the first officer calls out the mandatory calls to give warning of the plane's position in space. There is no descent height. Once you go by the final approach fix, you are committed to land and you will not be doing anything until you roll out at the end of the runway at lower than 60 knots, the autopilot is disconnected and the problem arises of finding your way to the gate.
Usually, visibility is so restricted by fog that you creep along by following the special visual aids, such as centre line taxi lights and the green configuration that leads you off the runway, on to the taxiway and toward the apron and the gate. It is a marvellous thing to watch because there is a piece of machinery that does it all for you. Much like landing on the moon, it is all automated.
The Chairman: I think I have made a few of them. After the first one, the pilot announced, "Ladies and gentlemen, you have just made an unassisted landing," or something like that. I thought it was a great idea. If I had been told beforehand, I would have been scared.
When you are down to 200, for example, and you listen for a mile or so, you can make a decision to land because you have the proper instrumentation on board. You are skilled because you have done these landings before. It is always important that you maintain your skill in doing these things. The only way you can do that is by doing them. You do not learn by thinking about it. You learn by doing it.
In such a case, does the ground dispatch team come into play and say, "Yes, that is a good idea, captain"? Or is there a dialogue that is then established as you lead up to this final approach?
Mr. Squires: Insofar as bad-weather approaches and landings are concerned, there is certainly a beneficial exchange between the pilot in command and the flight dispatcher. That is because the flight dispatcher has been monitoring the airport in question, the weather sequences and the runway conditions. He has all the reports. He knows whether the captain's alternate, should it be necessary, is available for use. He counsels the pilot in command before the commitment is made to land or to go in to do the approach at the destination.
So, yes, there is a very strong role to the link between the flight dispatcher and the pilot in command with respect to making an approach at an airport where there are marginal weather conditions.
The Chairman: If we are to reduce the number of incidents and accidents over the next 10 years, then we will have to move in this collective, collegial way. Canadians fly in and out of airports all over the world where the standards are not nearly as high as they are here. I do not want one of those wrecks to be a Canadian flag carrier. Are we going in the direction whereby we can voice our concerns and help to correct and upgrade standards at other airports around the world into which Canadians must fly?
Mr. Squires: I think we are going in that direction, not only with respect to airports but with respect to modern technology that is being required and being placed on board airliners to do things such as separating one airliner from another when a loss of separation occurs because of an air traffic control judgment or decision.
You commented on flying in far-away locales. I will raise the incident of the turbo jets colliding in India; that was a catastrophe. The issue here is whether that accident would have occurred at all had those airplanes been equipped as we have ours equipped in this country and as they must be equipped for flight into the U.S.A.
The Chairman: That is a pertinent point.
Mr. Crichton: Mr. Chairman, you are absolutely right. There are areas in the world which have woeful inadequacies in the aviation body which operates the regulatory structure, in the air navigation system or in the airports themselves.
You may have heard that IATA, our international association, has a major program to try to change the sad state of the air navigation system in Africa. At the end of the day, though, these issues require more than just airlines and airline associations trying to do something about them. Sovereign governments will be required to do something, perhaps through ICAO or the United Nations or other programs, to assist these countries, most of them third-world countries, to obtain proper aviation infrastructure and standards.
As we said earlier, if the accident rate stays the way it is today but aviation traffic doubles, then we will hear about an accident once a week. Most of those accidents will not occur in North America.
The Chairman: That is my point.
Mr. Crichton: Most likely the increase in the absolute number of accidents will occur in other parts of the world. That is still totally unacceptable. Our airplanes fly there; Canadian citizens fly there.
The Chairman: And we often have no choice. You say you are pleased with where we are going. You cannot rush these things too much or you may confuse yourself.
Mr. Squires: That is a pertinent observation. For example, with the introduction of the CARs and all the new requirements placed upon Canadian aviation, the expenditures have been very large and we have welcomed almost all of them, but we must go forward with continuing improvements in technology on a step basis. The last thing we want to do is put ourselves in a position where we are having difficulty paying the bills for equipment.
It is a good move. We are going ahead. New equipment is coming on the market and is being required and installed in Canadian airplanes. I refer not only to the kinds of airplanes used on international operations but also to the Dash 8s which operate almost solely within our country, and other smaller airplanes. They are starting to be very well-equipped, all thanks to safety regulations.
The Chairman: We are not inventing new wheels to achieve safety, or are we?
Mr. Squires: Yes, there are some new wheels. Mr. Crichton referred to one in his presentation: the enhanced GPWS. That is a marvellous piece of technology. The biggest problem in many areas of aviation today is CFIT, controlled flight into terrain, whereby a perfectly serviceable operational airplane hits the ground.
We believe that this enhanced GPWS, with its capability to know, with great precision, runway position, terrain elevation and the placement of any significant man-made obstacles, will warn pilots when they are not in proper landing configuration, lined up with the runway.
The Guam accident is a perfect example. If enhanced GPWS had been installed in that 747, I do not think that accident would have occurred.
The Chairman: You are right.
Senator Adams: We last met these witnesses about a year ago now, just at the beginning of your association with NAV CANADA. How is that association working? At the beginning, there was talk of approaching every runway about privatization.
Mr. Crichton, many of us fly up north a lot. You are based in Ottawa. I have heard about many weather observers being replaced by AWOS systems. I have heard, too, that prices and fees and taxes are all going up. That makes it difficult for employers like First Air.
Now we hear complaints that NAV CANADA is overcharging on landing fees and things like that. This is a problem especially in northern communities, where only a handful of passengers are flying in and out. It is okay in major centres like Winnipeg or Toronto where 100 passengers land in one airplane and share the cost of one landing fee. It is hard for small airlines to meet those fees every time they touch down or every time they ask for weather information. How would you compare operations now to the previous operations under Transport Canada?
Mr. Crichton: Senator Adams, the overall relationship between the commercial aviation industry and NAV CANADA is quite good, I would say. Perhaps Mr. Squires can explain some of the ongoing consultations on the technical side.
On some of the northern issues, you are quite right. There was an economic issue earlier this year when some northern carriers were quoted as saying that they thought the fees from NAV CANADA would cause 20 to 30 per cent increases in their rates.
Where those numbers came from, no one has been able to determine. NAV CANADA spent quite a bit of time working with First Air and some other airlines as well as the GNWT. All of the parties at the end of the day agreed that the increase was something in the range of 2.5 to 3 per cent, instead of 20 to 30 per cent. Even that increase was, in large part, due to the fact that, although the passenger tax is disappearing, most northern flights are at least half cargo so they do not carry the same number of passengers. That does not quite balance.
NAV CANADA, at the end of the day, in response to those concerns, took steps to minimize the impact in the north. For instance, at all of the smaller airports where the CARs stations are located, which are run by the northern governments on behalf of NAV CANADA, there are no terminal charges at all. Those were eliminated.
There are no charges at all for weather services, anywhere. There are no charges for anything that could be construed to affect safety.
The charges have been minimized as much as possible. Right now, NAV CANADA is about to embark on a major study with the Yukon and NWT governments, and all the air carriers in the north, including the Northern Air Transport Association, on establishing what is the appropriate level of service. A number of the northern associations and the GNWT have indicated that they could operate some of the flight service stations as CARs in a more effective way. The carriers support that. That would reduce the cost quite a bit. That will be the focus of a major study about to begin in the next few weeks, and I am sure it is one in which all affected organizations will want to participate.
In its first full year of user fees, NAV CANADA will be charging airlines roughly $120 million less than the air transportation tax would have generated in the same period. The overall cost of flying for Canadians should go down.
The Chairman: Why is the price of tickets going up?
Mr. Crichton: There are a few other items of cost, the price of jet fuel being one.
On the safety side, some very good working is being done in terms of consultation.
Mr. Squires: Senator, you referred to the weather and the acquisition of weather information. I assume you were referring to a technology called AWOS that has been so prominent in the news in the last two years. We have no doubt that this technology was put into operational use prematurely. They did not have all of the bugs ironed out of that technology. They put it in, and a lot of problems were caused. I think one of your committees studied that issue, and you heard from witnesses who told you about those problems.
Since then, through the process of consultation that Mr. Crichton referred to, there has been a major undertaking to quantify the problems and to seek solutions to them. That effort has been ongoing now for the better part of two years. I think a conclusion was reached recently indicating that a number of improvements have occurred that will make the acquisition of that kind of weather sequence more reliable and more usable to the air crews who receive it. However, it is not equal to manned observation yet. It still has difficulty identifying phenomena on the horizon, such as lightning or approaching fog. It does not have the ability to see that weather coming in, but it does have an improved ability to be more accurate in what it has been doing since it was put into operation. That is one example where consultation and work on some of the sensors and some of the parameters of the equipment have produced an improvement. In due course, once these improvements become widespread, the acquisition of that kind of weather information will be done at much lower cost than manned stations. It will pay for itself very quickly. However, we recognize, and our members recognize, that deficiencies remain and that there is much more work to be done.
Senator Adams: Senator Carney did some work in this area and chaired the transport committee a couple of years ago. At that time, I think Mr. Young was the Minister of Transport and appeared before the committee as a witness.
The AWOS system has been installed in a few locations in the Arctic, such as, I think, Resolute Bay and Iqaluit. I would like to see the operation some time. Last year, we went to see some air traffic controllers. One of the controllers showed us the flights across Canada, Europe and Asia. It was most interesting.
The weather changes rapidly in the Arctic. Last month, the wind reached speeds of over 130 kilometres an hour, something almost unheard of up there. We are used to winds of around 60 and 80 kilometres an hour, but not 130. For four days, there were no planes.
What matters is safety. Now that we have no observers, all we have is an automatic system.
I would like to find out more about air taxes. If airlines have to pay more in air taxes, they may have to cut corners. The airlines may say they cannot afford the taxes and reduce their flights. Cutting back may cause accidents.
Who controls the pricing, the landing fees and the taxes? The territorial government still controls the Arctic airports. I do not know how much money they are putting into things like snow removal. I am thinking of safety and weather, and the operations at NAV CANADA and Transport Canada.
Mr. Crichton: To address the AWOS issue, the position NAV CANADA has taken with the carriers is that they will not install AWOS in a location unless the carriers agree to it, or they will circumscribe its use. It is up to the carriers to decide.
As Mr. Crichton indicated, the technology is getting better and better. It will never do all the things a human can do, but it serves a very useful purpose in some circumstances.
NAV CANADA's role is strictly related to the air traffic control system and the air navigation system. It does not have anything to do with the operation of the airports themselves. That is a completely different function.
In the NWT and the Yukon, the territorial governments own and operate all of the airports, essentially. Transport Canada has pulled out. There is a funding mechanism between the federal and territorial governments whereby the territorial governments are given money for those operations, but that is a matter between them.
Generally speaking, I think user charges on the carriers in the north have been relatively modest, particularly in the airport area, as compared to the south. However, what we are seeing in the south, in terms of airport charges, is a very dramatic increase and one that will escalate much higher as the new airport authorities begin very large capital spending programs.
Right now, the top 10 airports have over $6 billion on the books budgeted for capital spending over the next 10 years. That is far more than Transport Canada ever dreamed they could have spent in the last 20 years.
Someone must pay for that because the federal government is no longer subsidizing those airports. Before this process is finished, the air passengers in the north will be the lucky ones because people are still spending money with common sense up there, whereas I am not so sure that is the case down south.
The Chairman: Do you have any knowledge of a committee or a study group monitoring safety within the air taxi group?
Mr. Crichton: Yes.
The Chairman: That is a fair answer. Is ATAC generally happy with the privatization of Canadian airports?
Mr. Crichton: We are happy with the national airports program principle of devolving the airports to local control, to non-share capital corporations such as the airport authorities, removing them from the federal government's domain and putting them under local control so that they can be managed and developed on a more flexible basis.
We are not happy with two issues. First, the federal government is leasing the largest eight or nine airports under terms that are not commercially viable or sustainable. They are too one-sided and generate far too much money in the way of lease payments to the federal government, and that hampers the airports' ability to operate on a viable basis and causes them to increase the costs to the public through higher landing fees, terminal fees, and so on. It also makes their debt service costs very high.
Let us take as an example the transfer of Lester B. Pearson Airport in Toronto. In the last year that Transport Canada operated that airport, it had total revenues of around $120 million a year. The lease payment that the new airport authority must pay to Transport Canada is $100 million a year. The airport has announced a capital spending program, including new terminals plus two more runways and taxi way operations and so on, of about $3.75 billion. The debt service cost on that today, even on a 30-year bond issue, is about $700 million per year. Remember, this is an airport that had total operating costs of only $100 or $120 million per year before the transfer and now will be paying $700 million per year on debt service alone. You have to say, "Just a minute here. Something will not to work."
There are similar situations, albeit the numbers are smaller, in Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal, and so on. The federal government is taking too much money out of that system. By privatizing those airports, they saved $150 million per year in subsidies under the program. Now the government is taking in more and more money while at the same time saying, "You are on your own, but, by the way, we still own the airport. We only leased it to you. We own everything you build on the airport. We are not paying for it but we will still own it." You would never find this type of lease in the commercial world. It is far too one-sided. That will become a growing public issue as these costs start to pile up and people begin to understand what is happening.
The airline industry is also unhappy about the fact that in setting up these airport authorities, the federal government made no provision at all for any airline representation within those companies <#0107> not even one seat on the board. We find that strange and not conducive to a good dialogue between the airports and the airlines. We are quite concerned about that. It is quite a contrast to the NAV CANADA situation where there are seats on the board for the customers to have some input. They do not control it but they have some input. Those are the two main things that concern us.
The Chairman: Are you confident that airport security will not suffer in the privatized world?
Mr. Crichton: I do not think there is any concern there. The privatization process will be done within a week; the deal is actually closing. Transport Canada is maintaining a firm regulatory function regarding security standards for equipment, procedures and so on. They are not giving up any of that.
The Chairman: Do they maintain a monitoring responsibility or obligation?
Mr. Crichton: Yes, absolutely.
The Chairman: If there are "clean" and "dirty" passengers, do they keep them separated?
Mr. Crichton: There is a whole set of regulations through Transport Canada regarding that, yes.
Senator Adams: What about police forces? The RCMP are no longer at the airports. Do you have staff or is it government staff?
Mr. Crichton: The airports have had to assume that role. Most of them have entered into contracts with the local police forces. If you go to the airport here in Ottawa, the regional police are now present in the terminal. The airlines are paying for that.
The Chairman: They are?
Mr. Crichton: Yes, they are.
The Chairman: You mean the public is paying for it.
Mr. Crichton: What about those poor airline shareholders who lost money for all those years? At the end of the day, it is their money that is at risk.
The Chairman: Is there an ongoing conversation between the air industries association and your organization relating to air safety? Do you discuss it? Does it come up once a year or once a month?
Mr. Crichton: The association representing the manufacturers of aircraft and aeronautical products obviously has a different approach from ours. However, there is a lot in common. We have a joint airworthiness group that meets regularly to discuss issues surrounding airworthiness with respect to aircraft and aircraft components, which, at the end of the day, is a safety issue since it deals with maintenance and reliability of aircraft and aircraft components.
The Chairman: Is this an accidental dialogue or a structured dialogue?
Mr. Crichton: It is structured. We have a joint committee between ATAC and AIAC. That committee also meets with the regulator, Transport Canada, which certificates aeronautical products.
The Chairman: Are these meetings quite regular?
Mr. Crichton: There is a regular schedule, plus they meet on an ad hoc basis if issues arise that require special treatment.
The Chairman: Are you satisfied with the present Aeronautics Act? I do not know if you can overhaul a 60- or 70-year-old document. I think you have to rewrite it. Could you comment on the Aeronautics Act, bearing in mind that we are looking at safety? With a problem like pilot fatigue, any solution must be in an act; a regulation never satisfies anyone, really.
It works for a while and then within a year the matter may reappear.
Mr. Crichton: Senator, if we are looking at the Aeronautics Act through a safety lens, I would suggest that it is quite acceptable. It gives the Minister of Transport regulation-making power to address any issue of flight safety. The act provides the minister authority and flexibility, within the framework of the CARs, to address any issue that can arise.
As we explained earlier, the CARs that are now in place are very responsive, and the act enables those regulations to be developed, to be dynamic and to meet changing needs. The enforcement of the regulations is within the government's power, and they enforce them very vigorously. The provisions in the regulations are every bit as enforceable as a section of an act. There is really no distinction between them.
It is much easier to amend regulations to deal with changing circumstances than to amend an act once it has gone through Parliament. It is pretty hard to get an act back on the table, but regulations are a different story. The process that has been set up is very good at allowing the affected parties and the various stakeholders to have input into those changes as they happen. At the same time, Transport Canada retains, in a matter of urgency or public safety, the right to act unilaterally without delay. They do so all the time.
The Chairman: Are you happy with the regulatory process?
Mr. Crichton: Yes.
The Chairman: Incidentally, have you ever seen a copy of the Aeronautics Act?
Mr. Crichton: Yes.
The Chairman: If you review that legislation, you will see it is a partial codification of changes made over a lengthy period of time.
Mr. Squires: Approximately 10 or 15 years ago, I worked as the chairman of a federal-provincial task force that examined airport zoning at non-federal airports. As a result of that activity, we brought forward a proposed housekeeping change to the Aeronautics Act.
Mr. Keith Miller, Advisor to the Committee (Aviation): The subcommittee has heard on two or three occasions that there was a group or committee studying transportation safety with the air taxi operators or bush airlines. Are you aware of this committee? Is it part of the Air Transport Association?
Mr. Crichton: Our association participated in that task force. Another ATAC officer closely associated with Mr. Squires handled that. His responsibilities relate to the smaller aircraft operators.
Mr. Miller: Have they issued a report?
Mr. Crichton: Yes, they have. There was much concern about continued VFR flight into deteriorating weather conditions, with significant focus on the West Coast situation. That and other issues were addressed in that report.
Mr. Miller: Where could the subcommittee obtain this report?
Mr. Crichton: We can certainly provide it.
The Chairman: Would you provide the clerk with a copy?
Mr. Crichton: We can get it to you tomorrow.
Mr. Miller: This has been an elusive matter.
Mr. Crichton: As I recall, it is an interim report at this point as opposed to a final report. We will get to it to you and perhaps we should send along any comments we may have submitted as well.
Mr. John Christopher, Researcher, Library of Parliament: Are there any problems with the safety aspects of helicopters? We heard from associations in Washington and they did not have many concerns. What is the Canadian situation?
Mr. Crichton: From a safety point of view, helicopter operations are governed by much the same set of regulations as fixed wing.
The only area I recall helicopter operators being concerned about was the permission to allow some Russian military helicopters to be brought in to do some heli-logging, and they did not meet Canadian airworthiness standards.
Mr. Squires: I do not think there is a concern in the helicopter industry that they are facing a critical safety problem but it has to be recognized that helicopter operations are vastly different from fixed wing operations.
Helicopters operate in and out of non-airport locations; that is the nature of the beast. Helicopters go into unprepared locations and transport goods, materials and sometimes people from these isolated locations.
The Chairman: We have this plea from northern operators that they must exist under a separate code or separate system of regulations because they only work from May to October, during which time they have to do a year's work. As Senator Adams will attest, they are working 12, 14, sometimes 18 hours a day.
Mr. Squires: The relevant regulations are, in fact, the flight- and duty-time limitations and rest period requirements for that kind of an operation.
The Chairman: They are quite different.
Mr. Squires: They are different from those affecting the larger operators. However, the same regulations also apply to the bush operators, and fixed wing operators with light airplanes on floats that operate in the north, as do the helicopter operators, during the period when the weather is good and daylight exists. They shut down once the darkness and bad weather arrives and do not start again until the spring. They operate quite differently and they always have. They have maintained good, safe operations under the current regulations, which recognize the difference between their operations and those airlines or commuter operators which work over a full year.
The Chairman: That was essentially my point. I have one last area that I wish to touch upon. You may know that Parliament is currently dealing with Bill S-2, which is proposed legislation to amend the Transportation Safety Board Act.
Are your member companies happy with the work the board has been doing in the last few years? Do you have any constructive criticisms, comments or observations?
Mr. Crichton: I would say, Mr. Chairman, that the commercial aviation industry is fairly well satisfied with the safety board's function over the last few years.
I am not aware of any serious complaints or concerns.
The Chairman: Last night I asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, to whom the board reports, how many investigations they carried out last year on the air side. He said they investigated about 100 incidents. I asked him how many reportable incidents there were, and he told me there were about 2,600. This act was conceived and developed for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was to separate the regulatory body from the investigative arm so as to rid it of any suggestion of conflict. I can give you citations with respect to that from my own involvement. I asked the parliamentary secretary whether he agreed with that and he said he did, that it is a good goal.
How can anyone say that the end is being achieved when the board investigates only one in 25 accidents and lets the regulatory agency do the rest?
Mr. Crichton: I will go out on a limb here and defend them a bit. You first said "incidents" and now you have said "accidents". In my understanding, you are probably talking about incidents.
The Chairman: Reported incidents.
Mr. Crichton: We have to define our terms.
The Chairman: Let us say there were 1,000 accidents.
Mr. Crichton: I think there were 300 or so accidents and probably over 90 per cent were privately registered, light aircraft, not commercial aircraft. So we are talking about a handful of commercial aircraft accidents.
The Chairman: You are worse than the parliamentary secretary.
Mr. Crichton: I dare say they probably investigated almost every accident involving a commercial aircraft. "Incidents" would include air traffic control incidents. By NAV CANADA's definition for air traffic control, if the separation standard between two airplanes in a certain situation is five miles and, for some reason or other, they achieve six-mile separation, not by the controller's plan but by accident, that is an incident. We have to be very careful about what is included in the term and what degree of importance we attach to it.
There may be aircraft accidents, particularly with privately registered aircraft, where the cause is obvious to people in the business. If a low-time, private pilot is pushing the weather and flies into the side of a hill, it is tragic and unfortunate, but it happens. If the facts surrounding that incident all point to an obvious cause, it is very difficult for the safety board to justify the time and taxpayer expense when a preliminary review would indicate clearly what happened.
Mr. Christopher: We have heard from the U.S. safety board as to how their operation works and we will be talking to other boards in the next few months. In your view, do we have the best model for a board, or are there other boards that are more efficient or effective? Are there things which, in your opinion, we could adopt from the U.K. or Australia or others?
Mr. Crichton: Generally speaking, I think we have a very good act and very good and professional people at the board. We also have a very good system in the way our safety board operates -- in the way it makes its findings, the way Transport Canada is required to respond to them, and the way it is accountable to Parliament.
One of the things I do not like in the United States, and unfortunately we have seen it quite a bit in the last couple of years with the TWA and ValuJet incidents, is the political involvement at the accident scene. We turned on CNN and saw the Secretary of Transportation standing in a swamp or on the beach at Long Island. There is too much political involvement. That is not a problem in this country, thank goodness. We treat that aspect seriously and I think our system is better that way. I cannot speak for some of the technical aspects of it, but I think it is pretty good.
Mr. Squires: I think it is good. I have reviewed some of the proposed amendments contained in Bill S-2. I do not know which ones you find disfavour with.
The Chairman: Specifically, I am concerned that we are reducing a five-person permanent board to a five-person board on which only one member shall be full-time. The reason given for that was that it is very difficult to get people to move to Ottawa to work. I am sorry, but I am a bit of a skeptic.
It seems to me that it is a regressive measure to cut back on the capacity of the board to act. If you look at something once or twice, you may find it interesting. If you look at it 50 times, you may begin to see a pattern. After you have looked at it 5,000 times, you may be able to say that it is predictable, but you do not say it before that. If you are not investigating as many of these as possible, you are failing to build the ethic that is so required in order to be predictable. To reduce the board from five permanent members to four part-time members and one full-time member seems to me to be a retrogressive step. However, you are the people who have to life with it. I just have to fly with you.
Mr. Squires: The concern of ATAC and the industry I represent is the aviation concern. The board, of course, has to deal with all kinds of transportation accidents. They have to deal with marine, pipeline, rail, and so on, but we feel that any mistake we have ever made in aviation has been critically examined. We have documented the problems that led to the accident and we have had regulations placed upon us by the regulators to ensure that these things never happen again. From an aviation point of view, I think the board has done very well in making our operations safer every other time it looks at us.
I do not know about the part-time aspect of it, but I know that when there have been vacancies on the board, we have hoped to see some representation from our industry. As Mr. Crichton said, it has always been a problem to get someone who is truly qualified and competent to serve. It is a difficult situation. I do not have the answer.
Mr. Crichton: I would be concerned if, coupled with the conversion of four people from part-time to full-time, there was also a significant reduction in the board's operating budget.
Provided that its operating budget is maintained at its present level, I do not think that change should cause any great problem. I say that because the function of the board members is to take the material that the professional staff and the investigators have assembled and look at it as a board to try to draw conclusions. The board members do not go out and investigate the accidents themselves. The professionals do that and bring the information to them. You may be able to accomplish that work by using part-time members. They may be travelling back and forth to Ottawa quite a bit, but they should still be able to get the work done. However, if the operating budget is cut in any significant way, then I think that could affect their ability to conduct investigations.
The Chairman: I am sure that is true. I just could not understand why they did not bother to say so.
Mr. Crichton: I would think what the board would have to pay to a part-time member, including the travelling expenses, in the context of their overall budget would not be significant.
The Chairman: I would not think so.
Senator Adams: We have all heard about the young girl who was flying across America and was killed in a crash. I believe that no one should be operating aircraft until he or she is at least 18 or 20 years old. If safety is a private matter, it may be difficult to regulate things like that.
Mr. Crichton: In Canada, in order to get a student pilot permit, you must be 16.
Mr. Squires: In commercial air service field, there is the commercial airline pilots' association, and I believe their age limit is 21. We do not have any young kids flying in commercial airline operations.
Mr. Crichton: I believe the American girl you mentioned was only an eight years old girl. In Canada you cannot even get a learner's permit until you are 16. In the U.S., they did not have an age limit.
Senator Adams: What is happening with Dorval and Mirabel?
Mr. Crichton: They are now under an airport authority and both airports are under a long-term lease from Transport Canada to the Montreal airport authority. NAV CANADA operates the tower and many of the navigational aids in each location, and they have a control centre just off the edge of Dorval that handles all of Quebec and part of the north.
Senator Adams: Does Mirabel now handle only charter flights?
Mr. Crichton: The airport authority changed the rule. They moved all the international scheduled airlines back to Dorval, and they want the cargo and the international charter airlines to work from Mirabel. There is some dispute with the charter airlines about that right now. In fact, I think it is in court.
Senator Adams: Do the charter companies still have to pay landing fees?
Mr. Crichton: Yes.
The Chairman: Thank you very much.
The committee adjourned.