Transport Committee on June 20th, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Julian.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for coming before us today.

I've got a series of questions. I'll get them all out and then ask for responses.

First, what's the estimate on the actual cost saving of having one less flight attendant? I'm thinking particularly of the B737-700s. How much would the airline save by having one less flight attendant?

Secondly, why are you not calling for stronger regulations? It is a major competitive advantage in an industry where, as you know, safety is a primary concern. Why not call for the strongest possible safety regulations and have a worldwide reputation that Canadian airlines are under more rigorous safety regulations than any other airline in other countries?

Third, on the issue of the internal process, it's my understanding that you mentioned organized labour. I assume you were referring to flight attendants. They've been part of the process, and they've been vehemently opposed. Within the internal process that you have, why aren't those views reflected in what you're bringing forward today?

Fourth, you mentioned an independent consultant who had done a study. Would you release that to the committee?

Fifth, on wide-body jets, you mentioned that you're looking at regulations to ensure every exit is covered by a flight attendant. But as you know from previous testimony, again for the B737-700s, there's an exit that's not covered. The fact is, with these new flight regulations, we're looking at dozens of aircraft with an uncovered exit. Is that not of concern to you? It certainly is to me.

The next question is on the United States. If I didn't misinterpret what you said, you mentioned that not one single report has indicated flight ratios were a factor. But I cited TWA Flight 843 and the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, which clearly indicated that flight attendants and the fact that TWA went beyond FAA requirements were factors in ensuring that all of the 292 passengers were evacuated.

You also mentioned that it was universally accepted, but we know that Australia has reviewed flight attendant ratios and has rejected any diminishment of the safety standards they have. Why can't we emulate best practices in the industry?

My final comment is on an issue that Mr. Grégoire raised as well. We've been working on this for a number of years, but the public obviously has serious concerns. Flight attendants who are the first-line responders have serious concerns. Why don't you drop it?

[Fred Gaspar]

Mr. Chairman, I'll respond in order, and I apologize in advance if I have missed some of the questions. I trust you'll remind me. I think I have them all.

As to your first one—how much an airline would save in going to a 1:50 ratio—I have to admit we really don't know. Each individual carrier is going to have to determine for itself what the potentials are.

Some of the factors and the reasons we don't know are that so many different factors play in deciding how many flight attendants to deploy and essentially what the costs of deploying a flight attendant are under given situations.

As to your second question—why not call for the strongest possible safety standards as a competitive advantage—this is a very important point, and I'm glad you brought it up. It allows me to once again reinforce this message to the committee. I don't even know if it's unspoken, but it's a pretty blatant tradition in the industry that you do not use safety as a competitive element. Safety is something that should be and is taken as a given. The regulator exists to ensure that we operate in a safe environment. Airlines exist to ensure they provide safe service. We do not compete with each other on safety. Safety is a given, and if there is anybody out there competing on safety, they're really doing a disservice to the entire industry.

And to that point, just before I leave the question, we don't accept the premise that staying at the 1:40 ratio would ensure the strongest possible safety standards, because the data-driven assessment of the CARAC process has shown, as Mr. Grégoire rightfully pointed out, that there would be no appreciable decline in the safety levels. We don't accept the premise of the question.

As to your third question asking why, if the CARAC process is open and inclusive and CUPE's views, as the union that participated, were opposed and their views aren't reflected in this process, the committee will be interested to know that their views were in fact included.

The way the CARAC process works, objections are noted in detail, and members around the table are required to respond to them. When they can't respond quantitatively to those objections, the CARAC committee then decides whether further study is needed.

In fact their views were very much noted, and each and every one of their concerns was addressed at a substantive level. Were we able to make them happy at a political level? No, and I cede the point that I don't think we'll ever be able to.

As to your fourth question, whether we would be able to release to the committee a substantive study that we cited as having been made, I referred to the same study Mr. Grégoire referred to, which he indicated is either already on the record or he is about to submit it to the committee. I will defer to this. If in fact he does not submit it, I invite the chairman to get in touch with me, and we'll do our best to make it available.

Concerning your fifth question, about the Transport proposal showing there are in fact emergency exits not covered, despite my comments that suggest one of the mitigating factors would be that all emergency exits would be covered, unfortunately I didn't get a copy and haven't seen the Transport Canada proposal. But we noted with interest the reference to the Boeing 737-700 having four exits. It's our understanding it actually has more than that, but that's not even the issue here.

The specific mitigating measure that's put in place is that on all wide-body jets—that's jets with two aisles or more—irrespective of the 1:50 ratio, if you choose to adopt it, you have to have one flight attendant for every exit door on that aircraft.

As to your sixth question, about the TWA report showing that the flight attendant ratios were a factor despite my statements that they are not, what I actually said was—I can give my exact words—there is no report that shows the lack of flight attendants was a reason why people were harmed.

Perhaps we're playing with words a little here, but going to that same point, I can refer to the quote you read. It's important to note that what they actually qualified it as was I think “a contributing factor”. Maybe I'm mischaracterizing the word, but—

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

"Complemented".

[Fred Gaspar]

It complemented. I'm sure it did complement, but as Mr. Grégoire rightfully pointed out, we have to exist in a data-driven environment, and in fact there was no evidence to suggest that more flight attendants would have made the process any quicker or any better.

As to your seventh question—why not emulate best practices such as Australia's—Australia has looked at this, and they've decided not to go the other way. I would suggest to committee members that it would be an error in judgment to conclude that Australia is not going to the 1:50 ratio model because they have looked at this thing inside and out and have concluded it is unsafe. They are dealing with the same political pushback we are dealing with here. Unfortunately, they do not have the courage of their convictions to proceed. It's up to them to decide in their own best interests, but I would suggest to you, respectfully, that it was not because of a lack of merit of the position.

Unfortunately, I believe you had another question, but I didn't have time to write it down.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Why don't you drop it?

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Jean.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Gentlemen, is there any possibility that you could have too many flight attendants? For instance, I fly every week, and I see these aisles and I can't imagine.... I've been thinking about it ever since we decided to study this. Is it possible that you could have too many people clogging the aisles or the emergency exits?

[Fred Gaspar]

I guess it would be possible. Your question speaks to an important way to look at the issue, and that is to really almost look at mathematical modelling and data in terms of how people actually move in emergency situations. To that point, you're absolutely right, there could be those kinds of circumstances. We feel very satisfied that the current measure strikes the right balance.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

That's one, minimum, per exit, and the one in....

Mr. Vasarins, could you give us a 30-second rendition of your job history? I understand you worked at Nav Canada for a while.

[Andy Vasarins]

Yes, I've been in the aviation transportation business for over 40 years. I started out, actually, as an air traffic controller. I worked in a number of facilities, including Toronto International Airport radar and at the centre, and then I graduated to management. During 9/11 I was vice-president of operations, and my responsibility and accountability was to clear the Canadian skies on that dreadful day and to restart the operations a number of days later.

I retired from Nav Canada two and a half years ago, but I retired on April Fool's Day, and that never sticks. Then I started with the Air Transport Association of Canada as vice-president, flight operations two years ago.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

It's my understanding that with Nav Canada you spent considerable time on regulation, safety, security, and so on.

[Andy Vasarins]

Yes, I did.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Actually, those are all my questions. Mr. Chair, I'd like to give Mr. Julian the opportunity to ask more questions of the witnesses if he would like.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

I appreciate your offer, Mr. Jean, but I think we would be prepared to take one more question each. We have about six minutes, so if you can keep it brief and to the point, we can maybe get more questions.

We'll go to Mr. Bell.

[Don Bell, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

Thank you.

First of all, I just want to clarify Mr. Jean's comment. It isn't one flight attendant per exit. That's only on a wide body. That is my understanding. Is that not correct?

[Fred Gaspar]

Yes, that's a mitigating factor.

[Don Bell, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

It's under mitigating factors.

I have one question that you could answer. What is the most common load factor? I'm saying the most common. We have examples here of 70%, 80%, 90%, and 100%. The flights I'm on right now are running between 90% and 100%, I suspect, and I just want to know what the average is.

[Fred Gaspar]

Unfortunately, we have to defer to the public statements of our members. The major ones, WestJet and Air Canada, do disclose on a regular basis, and I believe, if I'm not mistaken, that the most recent ones had them at about 80%, domestically. But again, those are average figures.

[Don Bell, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

The reason I ask that question is because--and it's not based on the number of aircraft but on the number of aircraft types that were given to us by Mr. Grégoire in his presentation--at the 80% load factor, it looks like six out of 43 are going to require an increase in the number of flight attendants, and six types of aircraft will require no reductions. At 90%, six out of 43 would be increased and 14 out of 43 would be reduced. And at 100%, four would be increased and 23 would be reduced.

It appears that the major beneficiaries are the smaller aircraft with fewer than 200 passengers. It seems that they are where most of the reductions occur at the 90% and 100% levels. The other question I had is, if that's the case, what's the difference between the wide body and...? Why wouldn't we have a requirement for one flight attendant per exit, whether it's a wide body or a single body?

[Andy Vasarins]

The main reason is the distance between exits. As a matter of fact, as Mr. Gaspar related to you earlier, even today, based on 1:40 figures, there are numerous cases in which you can demonstrate that you don't have a flight attendant for each exit. For example, the Airbus A320 and the Airbus A319 all have six exits. Under the 1:40 ratio, they don't really require six flight attendants. The Airbus A320 requires four flight attendants, and that's assuming you have a full aircraft, because that's based on passengers, not seats.

If you have percentages, as you mentioned, it would be less. Airbus A319, on a 1:40 ratio, has three, based on a seat capacity of 120.

The reality for the narrow versus wide body is the distance between exits and the fact that there are seats and galleys and so on blocking exits on a wide body, because they're in the middle and the exits are on the outsides, whereas on a narrow body, the flight attendants are in much closer proximity to those exits and therefore can handle more than one exit at a time.

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

My understanding is the same as yours. I think most large companies offering a wide range of services, such as Air Canada, will probably maintain the 1:40 ratio. Even Mr. Gregoire, in his presentation seemed to say—

My question is simple. Why are we introducing this change if our largest airline decides to maintain the same ratio? Why shake up the current regime?

[Fred Gaspar]

It's for the same reason we pursue any modernization or innovation initiative, and that's to prepare for the future, because if there is one imperative in commercial aviation that's true, and has remained true throughout the era of aviation, it is change.

We are coming off a series of negotiations on open skies. The skies are more open today than they've ever been. We're dealing with a hyper-competitive environment, in which I would suggest it's plain and simply unfair to handcuff Canadian aviation service providers while their international counterparts are operating in more liberalized, but equally safe, environments.

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

But you realize that our population is aging. You have to take that fact into account. I for one, think that this is a step behind and not a step forward.

[Fred Gaspar]

Your point is well taken, and that's why the issues of service and safety coexist. That's why members carriers are going to have to decide for themselves what the best way to proceed is, and no pre-emptive decision has been made.