Transport Committee on June 3rd, 2014

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you very much, Mr. Wilson.

I'll move to Mr. Toet for five minutes.

[Lawrence Toet, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses here today.

To start with, I just want to state very clearly for the record, in regard to Ms. Morin's questioning, actually we invited CUPE to join us at our meetings here and they refused to attend. If this issue was foremost in their minds, it's kind of strange that they would not be here to bring forward their viewpoint.

However, I want to turn to the witnesses that we do have here today. I want to talk about the transportation of dangerous goods. Mr. Wilson, WestJet does not transport dangerous goods, but I believe some of the other airlines do.

I'm just wondering what your parameters are for that. How do you assess the dangerous good? I'm assuming you also look, rather than just at the dangerous good itself, but also at how it's contained, how it's packaged, and how you contain that within the aircraft. Could you expand on that a little bit? Give us some sense of how you decide what dangerous good you're going to transport, and also how you work within the context of it with your employees and with your staff as to how that has to be contained, both within the containment of the unit itself, but also on the plane.

That question is for anybody.

[Samuel Elfassy]

I'll take a go at this.

IATA publishes a very comprehensive manual relative to the transportation of dangerous goods. It's about two and a half inches thick, and gives a very detailed description of what is permitted on board a passenger aircraft, what is permitted on an all-cargo aircraft, and how it's to be packaged. It provides all of the technical and scientific details specific to the product that's permitted to be transported based on the rules of transportation.

That publication is used as a training program for our employees. Some of our employees are in the field of accepting the dangerous good. Others are in the field of handling that dangerous good, in terms of boarding the dangerous good on board an aircraft, and others, in terms of responding, should there be an event associated with that good.... Depending on the role of the employee, they are provided comprehensive training that is reviewed by Transport Canada. They not only review the program, but they will often sit in and actually observe the training sessions. That manual is used to describe.... I'll give you an example.

Radioactive isotopes that are used in the medical industry are routinely shipped to various research centres and hospitals across the country and across the world. Sometimes radioactive items can only be placed in some very specific areas of an aircraft cargo compartment. Our loading instructions detail to the employees where they're placed, how far away from the passenger, and how they're handled. They are labelled. They are documented. The flight crew know they're being carried on board. Further, flight crew have on board the aircraft a very detailed protocol on how to respond should there be an incident involving that dangerous good. It's a checklist that the flight crew use.

Across the spectrum, depending on the role and responsibility of the employee, there's exhaustive training that is conducted.

[Capt Scott Wilson]

To highlight the robustness of the regulatory framework around it as well, even though WestJet has elected to be a non-DG carrier, so that we don't have holes in the system, Transport Canada still requires us to go through almost the same level of training with our front-line employees, so that we have that awareness and don't provide that input. We're not consciously accepting it, but we've still got all the barriers in place so that collectively we have a very robust framework for dangerous goods. Again, we elect not to carry them, but we still provide a high level of training, by regulation.

[Lawrence Toet, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

So there's an awareness even if something would—

[Capt Scott Wilson]

You'd have to know what isn't allowed, so that you have those same barriers that way, and that's what we provide.

[Lawrence Toet, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Good.

Mr. O'Rourke, in your answers to one of the questions regarding SMS, you said it's not only a compliance issue, but it's a two-way dialogue with the inspector that opens up that opportunity.

I know the question has been asked, but I think it's very important. How does that also work as far as your two-way dialogue with your employees? How deeply involved are they not just in the implementation, but actually in the building of your safety management systems, and the upgrading, and the continual renewal of those? Is there a system in place where the employees have the ability not only to bring forward issues regarding current things in the safety management system that they see need to be addressed, but also to bring forward something new that should be looked at by the company? Is there a mechanism in place also for that?

[Marc-André O'Rourke]

When it comes to individual employees, definitely one of the hallmarks of an SMS approach is to encourage and to make it easy and to make it safe and confidential for employees to report things. You have to build this culture of safety at all levels.

[Samuel Elfassy]

I can comment on that.

I don't want to let this day escape without clarifying one point, because it's important. Perhaps it's in the nuance of the word.

For us, safety and the word “priority” should not be confused with safety in a value system. We communicate safety as a value and not as a priority, because priorities often change. Safety is of the utmost value to all of us within aviation.

Now, I should say that every two years at Air Canada we conduct a very exhaustive survey of all of our employees. It's a very detailed survey. I'm proud to say that typically, when all of us receive surveys, we tend to discard them or there is generally not very much success in response to them. We had a 37% response rate, which is quite significant for the number of employees we have at Air Canada, and the information was meaningful. It allowed us to shape our safety goals and objectives for that calendar year. We take that information and we use various analytics in order to determine where the areas of strength are and where the areas of weakness and opportunities are. We communicate those back to our employees through town hall sessions, and we use that information to shape our goals and objectives. Then, we go back out and we try to explain to them our reasons for making those decisions, and we link that information back to the feedback and the comments that were provided through the organization. They become part of the goals and objectives.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you very much.

We'll now move to Mr. Sullivan, for five minutes.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses.

Mr. Wilson, you said something a few minutes ago that I wanted to correct. I think you said you've been operating under an exemption for the past while and that it provides an equivalent level of safety. In fact, two weeks ago representatives from Transport Canada said quite clearly that one in 50 is not an equivalent level of safety to one in 40, just for the record. I, as a passenger, don't know, when I'm on a plane, whether the door I'm next to is the one that's actually going to have a flight attendant assigned to it or not. If you were Ryanair, you'd be offering me a discount for sitting beside an unsafe seat, but you're not. The issue of whether or not it's equivalent is what's up for debate right now, and they said quite clearly that it's not an equivalent level of safety, according to Transport Canada levels.

Someone mentioned aircraft maintenance. Air Canada, and perhaps Air Transat, have moved to systems under which maintenance of the airframe and the engines is performed in another country. How are those individuals in those countries incorporated in your SMS? You said you represent 40,000 employees. I take it you don't consider those people to be part of your employee base.

[Capt Jacques Mignault]

I can begin.

From our perspective, we do use an external service provider for our main inspection program. Every single aircraft, once it returns, is inspected by our own maintenance team. Whenever issues are discovered as a result of the inspection, we follow up directly with the service provider. They have to provide specific corrective measures and put in place the quality program that's required to ensure the quality of their work.

We also have our own presence there on the ground to monitor the activities. We have periodic meetings with the management of this organization to review the record of incidents that are documented, and we follow up with them very closely to ensure that they put in place effective corrective measures.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

My question was about how they are involved in your corporate safety management system. They're not, because they're not your employees. Am I correct?

[Capt Jacques Mignault]

The employees within this organization have their own safety culture and reporting structure in place, so I'm not involved in that aspect. But definitely anything that is discovered as a result of this activity is followed up on, from our perspective internally, at Air Transat.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

If somebody rebuilds an entire engine, you're not going to discover what went on in the centre of that. Nobody in your inspection team is going to take apart that engine and check whether they used the right bolts.

[Capt Jacques Mignault]

No, but if there were an event later on related to the inspection that went on and the root cause was identified as a result of this inspection activity, that's when we would involve the service provider.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

I'll put the same question to Air Canada. How are they involved in your safety management system?

[Samuel Elfassy]

If the question is how they are involved in a safety management system, I don't want to leave you with the impression that they have a safety management system or that they don't have a safety management system. I'm not going to comment on that

What I will comment on is that at all of those bases where we conduct maintenance, we have embedded within those teams quality auditors and compliance officers to monitor the ongoing effectiveness of the work they are doing. We have those in all places.

You should know that in our case we have.... At our maintenance organization, they have a certificate, as well, to operate. They have an AMO, approved maintenance organization, certificate. That requires, under SMS, having a very robust quality component. We have them on site. They monitor and feed back essentially reliability reports based on performance.

I should also add another element that we have included. Any aircraft that comes out of a maintenance facility is flown and operated by a dedicated group of pilots. We refer to them as our non-revenue operation team. We do not put that aircraft into operation until the non-revenue team has had an opportunity to fly the aircraft and test reliability. As part of the effectiveness of that monitoring program, they feed back to us reports on the reliability and the performance of that aircraft. If we have an issue, we go back, get it fixed, and we monitor effectiveness. We do not hesitate to drop a maintenance organization if it fails to comply with the standards we expect.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Sorry, Mr. Sullivan, but your time has expired.

Mr. Komarnicki, for five minutes.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Before I get into my main line of questioning, I have a question for any one of you. In terms of the ratio of one flight attendant per 40 passengers changing to a ratio of one flight attendant per 50 passenger seats, I note that one is “passengers” and one is “passenger seats”. Could you explain the difference?

[Capt Scott Wilson]

I'll also give you an opportunity to.... Oh, he has left the room at the moment. Mr. Sullivan had a question and I didn't get a chance to rebut. I wouldn't mind taking that opportunity, as well.

First and foremost, if you look at an international standard, one in 50 very much is an equivalent standard to one in 40.

To the discussion around the doors, in particular, I'll use the Boeing 737-600 as an example. It holds only 119 guests, or passengers—guests is a WestJet vernacular. Whether it was one in 40 or one in 50, it's still required to carry three flight attendants. Of course, there would still be a door without a flight attendant; however, being a narrow-body aircraft, it has been proven time and time again that's not an issue.

In a lot of ways we find that we actually have better staffing on board the aircraft, because one in 40 allowed it a flexibility piece. You could have an aircraft with four doors, and if you wanted only 80 passengers on board, you'd only be required, under one in 40, to have two attendants. One in 50 takes that operating flexibility away, and it always requires that an aircraft dispatch appropriately, with the correct number of flight attendants at all times. One fewer flight attendant has no means for that aircraft to move. That's why we basically are very comfortable saying it's an equivalent level of safety.

It looks slightly different, but there's no reduction in safety barriers or margins, or else WestJet would not have entertained it whatsoever. On behalf of our 2,600 hard-working flight attendants, I strongly suggest they would have a stake in that game, too, and that's our comfort from that, sir.

I'm sorry, but I got a little off topic. If that did not answer the question and you'd like me to restate something, I'd be happy to put that framework back into it.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Thanks, and no, I think you've covered that aspect of it.

I want to move to my main line of questioning. This is in respect to safety management systems.

From what I've been hearing from the evidence.... Of course, there are regulations relating to safety. On top of that there's a safety management system. It's meant to augment what's already there. It's more flexible. I think someone referred to it as holistic. Of course, there was a survey that seemed to go against that trend. You did say there's some difficulty in getting a handle on measuring the survey or understanding exactly where it's going. I think it was Mr. Deveau who said that questioning the value of SMS is not a rational argument. I think one other comment was made that a higher risk because of SMS is often unfounded. I'm not sure who said that. Perhaps it was Mr. O'Rourke.

Can you indicate why you feel it's not a rational argument, Mr. Deveau, and why you feel it's unfounded, Mr. O'Rourke? Then I will have some questions following from that.

[David Deveau]

Absolutely and respectfully, with a comment.... If you're doing the kinds of things you've always done with respect to safety and you're augmenting that with additional more sophisticated processes with a deeper oversight from the regulator, there is no way that the overall system could not be safer. Yet it's the difference between—if we were talking about a financial management system—doing something in a very individual, superficial way versus a complex organizational management framework to do it.

The rationality here is...and the other part of the rationality is the evidence speaks for itself. We are living in the safest period of aviation that has existed. Safety management systems have been making inroads for a number of years here.

The combination of what the facts demonstrate and the plain fact that we have what we've been doing and we've augmented it with more sophisticated processes, we couldn't possibly have a situation that is less safe.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Did you want to make a comment, Mr. O'Rourke?

[Marc-André O'Rourke]

Please, yes.

Absolutely, some of the language in that press release and the survey is completely irresponsible and unfounded. To suggest that accidents are imminent and planes are going to fall out of the sky is completely unreasonable and unfounded.

We can provide you with numbers. Aviation has never been safer. We talk about the millions of flights and the ratio of accidents. We can provide those after the session. Yes, we will stand by that comment. As Mr. Deveau said, aviation is the safest mode of transport. It has never been safer and SMS is a big, big part of that.