Transport Committee on June 20th, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

I call the meeting to order.

I think because of the time factor today...we do have a quorum and I think we should proceed. We're here pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), to study safety solutions on all modes of transport and security. With us today are witnesses from the Department of Transport: Marc Grégoire and Susan Greene.

I assume you have a short presentation to give to the committee, and then we'll move into questions and answers.

[Marc Grégoire, Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security Group, Department of Transport]

Actually, last week I offered to give you a technical briefing, so with your agreement, I will proceed with the deck. You have in front of you a deck in both French and English, so I'll walk you through it.

I welcome the opportunity to provide you with the facts concerning the development of the regulatory proposal on flight attendant ratios.

I have with me today Mrs. Susan Greene, Transport Canada's leading safety expert on this issue. Mrs. Greene flew as a flight attendant for eight and a half years, during which time she also supervised and trained flight attendants. Mrs. Greene currently holds the position of chief, cabin safety standards; however, she also gained security experience following the events of September 11, 2001, when she was responsible for developing the revised security training requirements for crew members and guidance materials for passenger agents working at check-ins.

I don't think you need an introduction from me, since I was here on Thursday.

On page 2, you will find a summary of the current flight attendant requirements. Canadian Aviation Regulations require that there be one flight attendant for every 40 passengers. Regulations also include a provision under which certain eligible aircraft configured with only 50 passenger seats can operate with a limited number of flight attendants, namely on regional aircraft such as the ATR42 -300, the Dash 8-300 and the Canadair Regional Jet.

The International Civil Aviation Organization requires that all countries adopt regulations based on the number of passengers or the number of seats. ICAO does not recommend the ratio, as such, and allows member countries to make the appropriate determination. The one flight attendant for every 50 passenger seats ratio is currently used almost everywhere in the world.

As an example, you have on the slide some countries that use the one-to-fifty regime today, but just glancing at the regulations in other countries, one sees that Austria, Bermuda, Brazil, China, Chile, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Jamaica, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Singapore, Slovak Republic, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, United States, United Kingdom, etc., are some of the countries using the one-to-fifty regime today.

On slide 4, when an aircraft is originally designed, built, and certified to carry passengers, a maximum permissible number of seats is established for the aircraft, based on numerous safety-related criteria, among which are the number and size of exits from the aircraft, the distance between the exits, and the aisle widths. Each crew and passenger must have emergency means to allow rapid evacuation in crash landings. The manufacturer of the aircraft must prove through actual demonstrations that a full aircraft can be successfully evacuated within 90 seconds in darkened conditions with 50% of the emergency exits blocked.

The common standard used worldwide for this certification requirement is primarily based on one flight attendant for every 50 passenger seats. So even in Canada, for the aircraft that we certify, we use the one-in-fifty rule. So do the United States, France, and Brazil, countries in which a lot of aircraft are manufactured. Slide 5 is about the risk assessment. As I mentioned last week, the first industry proposal was rejected in March 2001, as the information provided failed to demonstrate a level of safety in keeping with the existing rule. As there were, and still remain, polarized views on this issue, and with the broader scope the second proposal provided, Transport Canada decided that a formal risk assessment should be conducted. Stakeholders from industry, unions, and passenger safety and consumer groups participated in the risk assessment, and in September 2003 they were provided with the risk assessment report. The ability to manage risk in a consistent and effective manner is essential to making prudent safety-related decisions. Therefore, a strong risk management process is an important part of the department's effective service delivery in safety monitoring. While we cannot remove the risk completely, we can use proven techniques to ensure that all aspects of the risk are identified and considered when making decisions.

The Canadian Standards Association's Q850 process is the basis for Transport Canada's approach. This proven process provides a guideline that assists decision-makers in identifying, analyzing, evaluating, and controlling all types of risk, including risks to safety and health. This is the formal assessment that was used. I should add that most of our staff in civil aviation have been trained to use this process.

On page 6, there is a brief explanation of the proposal. Based on the recommendations from the risk assessment and comments from stakeholders, Transport Canada has developed a regulatory proposal in order to provide an alternative, along with additional mitigating factors, which will offer the same level of safety to Canadians. It is important to note that the proposal is a minimal requirement and that airlines will be allowed to select a higher number of flight attendants, as is often the case currently, for client service purposes.

Under the proposed regime, airlines which choose the 1:50 passenger seat ratio would be required to meet specific conditions that do not currently exist in the regulations. These additional requirements have been included to ensure that the proposed 1:50 ratio offers the same level of security as the current 1:40 ratio.

I won't get into the technical details of the mitigating factors we would implement but we will answer any questions you may have. However, I would like to point out that three new items are proposed to require airlines to demonstrate that they have the same evacuation procedures in case of an emergency, in order to assess the procedures and the airline's emergency training program as well as the crew members' skills and the capability of the emergency equipment onboard.

As shown on page 8, additional amendments are proposed to four existing sections of the regulations. I would like to draw your attention in particular to numbers three and four. Flight attendants would be limited to working on three aircraft types. As there are no limitations on the one-to-forty rule, that would remain the same. For large aircraft with two aisles, we would require at least one flight attendant per floor-level exit.

There are other considerations: first, passengers with disabilities, on page 9.

Canadian Aviation Regulations already require airlines to implement procedures for special-needs passengers, like visually impaired, hearing impaired or mobility impaired persons or unaccompanied minors. These procedures include a preflight briefing, as well as a briefing on emergency and evacuation procedures. An able-bodied person is designated to help every special needs passenger in case of an emergency or an evacuation. Flight attendants must provide an individual briefing to special-needs passengers and any able-bodied passenger accompanying them to explain emergency or evacuation procedures.

Transport Canada is confident that with the current additional regulatory requirements, aimed at ensuring inflight safety, the proposed regulations will contribute to maintaining passenger safety, including for passengers who have special needs.

Moving on to page 10, there are security considerations.

Moreover, these safety requirements are designed to prevent persons or objects that could pose a threat to inflight safety from coming on board an aircraft or having access to restricted areas in an airport. The overall objective is to avoid this type of situation by improving controls and better assessing threats to safety before they reach the aircraft. No scenarios regarding security issues were developed during the risk assessment portion of the safety assessment analysis since risks involving loss of life from terrorist or hijacking activity remain high regardless of the number of flight attendants onboard. The change in the number of flight attendants has no impact on safety issues raised during the consultation process.

On page 11, in choosing an option, it's important to know that air operators would be required to determine, on a company-wide basis--and I insist on that, as I believe I mentioned last week, it would be on a company-wide basis--whether it's to their advantage to stay with the current one-to-forty passengers or whether to move to the proposed one-to-fifty passengers. For each company, this will be a matter of examining their fleet composition, with the number of seats installed on each airplane, the number of floor-level exits on each wide-bodied airplane, and the projected load factor as critical parameters.

At the back of your deck I have included a chart that shows the impact of the one-to-forty and one-to-fifty regime for each operator and each aircraft in Canada.

On average, Canadian air carriers operate at an 80% load factor. In almost all cases, at 80% or below, there is no impact. As you will see by glancing through the table, the data indicates that the majority of aircraft would operate with the same or a higher number of flight attendants. At 90% and 100%, which is quite rare, there are some reductions for some types of aircraft. In most instances, there would be no difference in the number of flight attendants.

To illustrate this, I have picked three aircraft, which were referred to before, that are commonly used in Canada. Slide 12 shows the differences between the one-to-forty and the one-to-fifty ratios, based on various load factors of an Airbus 320, a common aircraft type used by Air Canada. Using the Air Canada configuration of 159 seats, with an 80% load of passengers, there is no difference in the number of flight attendants required under both scenarios.

On page 13 we show a scenario of a Boeing 737-700, again, with various passenger load factors. Under both the one-to-forty and one-to-fifty regimes, WestJet would be required to carry the same number of flight attendants: three, when there is a load factor of 80%. However, at full capacity, the one-to-fifty rule would mean one less flight attendant than the one-to-forty regime.

As you can see on page 14, on wide-body aircraft like the Airbus 340-300, the 1:50 seat ratio requires that there be more flight attendants in almost all instances, except if the flight is full. In this case, and only in this case, the regulatory requirement of the 1:50 ratio would be the same as the 1:40, it would require eight flight attendants onboard. For any other passenger configuration, there would be more flight attendants under the 1:50 ratio.

In closing, I would say that the proposed change was developed through broad consultation, in-depth analysis and expert studies that demonstrated that the different options will have no impact on safety. During the development stage, we consulted industry representatives, unions, consumer groups and passenger safety groups. And these people were also part of the risk assessment. The stakeholders will also have an opportunity to express their views on the regulations when they are published in the Canada Gazette, part I.

A majority of countries require one flight attendant for every 50 passenger seats. These aircraft often take off or land in Canada and Canadians often travel onboard these foreign-owned aircraft in which the 1:50 ratio applies. The regulatory changes would harmonize our regulations with those of most other countries.

I would like to add that in this day and age, airlines have code share partnerships with other airlines. For all practical purposes, that means that if you have traveled abroad, even with a Canadian airline ticket, it's very likely that you have traveled onboard a plane where the 1:50 ratio applied. We are convinced that you did so safely. The same can be said of domestic flights. In the case of the Regional Jet or the Dash 8-300, the ratio is currently 1:50. We have never heard complaints of any kind regarding this.

Consultation is part of the development of all our Canadian aviation regulations, and our formal mechanism for initial consultation is the Canadian Aviation Regulation Advisory Council, commonly called CARAC. CARAC has participation from a large number of organizations outside Transport Canada representing the overall viewpoints of the aviation community.

I can assure you that throughout the regulatory process, whether at CARAC or during the gazetting process, all comments are carefully reviewed and play an important challenge function in ensuring that the department's decision is sound and can withstand scrutiny.

That means that when the time comes to decide to move forward with a regulatory proposal, the risk assessment has taken place and the department feels that this decision is in the best interest of Canadians.

Transport Canada will not introduce a change that could be detrimental to Canada's excellent reputation on safety. We take our role very seriously. The proposed regulatory changes demonstrate that we are determined to maintain a profitable civil aviation network without compromising its safety.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

I want to advise the committee that with the three groups we have, with agreement, I would like to have a five-minute round for each member, and then we'll switch to the next set of witnesses, if that's reasonable.

Mr. Scarpaleggia.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good day, Mr. Grégoire.

What airline is the safest in the world right now? Of all the airlines in the world there must be one, from year to year or in any given year, that is rated the safest in the world.

Do you know which one that is?

[Marc Grégoire]

I don't have that information right now.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

As you know, in 2001 the department found that the 1:50 ratio was not safe—you've heard this many times—and then in 2005, or 2003, it declared that it was safe.

What has changed? Have the standards changed, or the criteria?

[Marc Grégoire]

The proposal looked at in 2001 was not declared not safe, per se, it was declared not as safe as the 1:40 regime. Some people claim it was not safe, but let's not play with words: it was declared not as safe as 1:40. And we rejected it; we said it was not good, and we rejected it outright.

The proposal we have on the table today, after consultation and after a risk analysis, is quite different. It has a ratio of 1:50 plus a series of mitigation measures, as I explained. We feel that those mitigation measures, along with a ratio that is harmonized with what's being used in the world, will offer a level of safety equivalent to the 1:40 regime. It's not changed.

The proposal is to keep the regime we have now and to offer the airlines, as an alternative for their whole fleet, the possibility of using the other regime. But in order to benefit from this, they would have to make an application to Transport Canada. This would be part of their operating certificate. They would have to demonstrate that all of the mitigation measures would be put in place.

With those measures, we are very confident that it does offer an equivalent level of safety.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

But in your opening statement you mentioned that an important aspect of safety is the ability to ensure that in a crash landing all passengers can be safely evacuated. I don't imagine that the sample size of crash landings could be that great from around the world at different times over the last number of years, yet we have a real-life example from Canada itself. It was only a year ago that we had a crash landing, and the number of flight attendants on that flight was, oddly enough, much higher than the required ratio. Everyone got off without serious injury.

What is the rush? Why does the department have to go ahead now? Why can't they wait for the Transportation Safety Board report? How much money does an airline save by having one less flight attendant on a flight? Is this a crucial economic issue for the industry? Why can't we be cautious? Why can't we, especially in light of contradictory evidence, hold off for a year or two, or however long it takes for the Transportation Safety Board to issue its report?

So what is the rush? I just don't get it.

[Marc Grégoire]

I believe Minister Cannon already answered that question in his appearance on June 1.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

I wasn't here, and I apologize. If you could reiterate, I would appreciate it.

[Marc Grégoire]

He said we were ready to move, so I won't contradict--or repeat--what he said.

As to the rush, I understand you're meeting with ATAC when we leave, so you can ask that question of ATAC.

The fact is that we like to put regulations to bed, and there's a limit to the number of years we can spend debating a regulation. At one point in time you have to say, “We feel we've listened to all concerns, and we should move on to publish the regulations in the Gazette , part I”--which is, by the way, another consultation with all Canadians.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

This is highly complex--you must need one formidable computer to crunch these numbers and do these analyses--and yet there's no discernible benefit from having one fewer flight attendant. There's no discernible benefit for Canadians. I don't even know if there's a discernible benefit for all of the airlines in Canada; there may be for one.

I just don't get it. I think you act when there's a discernible benefit for Canadians and for air travellers. I just don't see the benefit in this or anywhere else.

[Marc Grégoire]

Well, there is. We did a cost-benefit analysis and we quantified that it would be beneficial for the industry as a whole to move on this. There is, today, a competitive disadvantage for airlines flying on international routes where all of the other airlines--except for Australia, where they have a different ratio, 1:36--fly with a regime of 1:50.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

So what you're saying, Mr. Grégoire, is that it's really an economic issue. You're saying that it's really an economic issue.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Laframboise.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Gregoire, with regard to the minister's position, you must understand that the committee's response is expressed in its majority decision on the motion. Before any regulation is tabled or published in the Canada Gazette, we want to discuss it at the committee level. That is this committee's response. The minister has stated his position, but the committee has responded to it and wants to assess every regulation before it is enforced. That's why we are here today, Mr. Gregoire.

You know our population is aging. You've analyzed the financial capacity of the industry, but our obligation, as members of Parliament, is to ensure that our fellow citizens are as safe if not safer than ever. It's not simply a question of providing services to disabled clients. Our population is aging and mobility is shrinking. When a problem arises, elderly people certainly need help to evacuate.

Mr. Gregoire, you are probably aware of a report that was tabled by your department. It dealt with recommendations made to CARAC in 2004, in which there was a series of questions regarding the debate held at the time. A risk assessment of the government's proposal was called for. Could you tell us if CARAC has conducted such a risk assessment on your current proposal?

[Marc Grégoire]

As I said earlier, a risk assessment was carried out, but I gave you the technical details on the regulatory proposal in my presentation. The regulatory proposal that was tabled today is different from the one we discussed two years ago at CARAC's level. That's why it differs. As one of your colleagues pointed out last week, there are diverging views within the community. Some people want more flexible rules and others want stiffer regulations. Some don't want changes and some want the flexibility to adjust the ratio on every flight.

There are mitigation measures that have been prepared by our officials, by Susan and her team.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

But you have not conducted a risk assessment on this proposal.

[Marc Grégoire]

These recommendations were made by professionals, experts in their field, and in many cases they go further than other countries' rules. If I agreed with your line of thought, Mr. Laframboise, I would have to advise our fellow citizens not to fly on Air France, British Airways or any of the American airlines. You seem to feel it's a dangerous proposition. I'm trying to tell you that people can fly safely onboard these airlines' aircraft under our proposal, and in many cases our regulations will be stiffer than in other countries.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

That's your perspective. What's important to my fellow citizens is that I be in a position to explain different risks in a transparent fashion, including when they fly on foreign-owned aircraft. I'm happy to provide them with that information.

[Marc Grégoire]

There is no risk.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

You have not conducted a risk assessment. I have a table here, for example, indicating that when the ratio is one flight attendant for every 40 passengers, the safety score is 404. When there is one flight attendant for every 50 passengers, the score is 102. Obviously, that's not your proposal. I'm simply saying that there is a risk assessment procedure, it allows us to tell the population, amongst other things, that when there is one flight attendant for every 40 passengers, the safety score is 404 points. Have you conducted such an assessment on your proposal, in order for me to tell my fellow citizens that what the government is proposing represents between 102 and 404 safety points? Perhaps it's 300, but you've not done this assessment.

I'm not comfortable with this because I am not capable of telling my constituents that the government's proposal entails the same or a reasonable level of safety. I'm leery when I hear you speak about what goes on elsewhere. As far as I'm concerned, all I can see is that for on a 1:50 ratio, the safety score is 102. That worries me.

You say you're proposing mitigation measures, which are probably a reasonable adjustment, but you have not conducted a risk assessment. I therefore cannot reassure my fellow citizens. Your own department requested this analysis, but you haven't done it. You tell me you have experts. As my colleague said, perhaps you're putting the cart before the horse. I know the department wants to deal with the issue, but does it have all the information it needs to make an informed decision? I'm not so sure of that.

[Marc Grégoire]

Was that a question or a comment?

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

It's both a question and the comment, Mr. Gregoire.

[Marc Grégoire]

Did we conduct a risk assessment after the risk assessment? No. Have we introduced mitigation measures to ensure that the level of safety remains the same? Yes, and that's what I explained today.