Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee members.
My name is Pamela Sachs, and I'm also the chairperson of the council of component presidents of the airline division of CUPE. I'm also a flight attendant. I was a qualified flight attendant for 26 years before I assumed my union role, and I have been in this union role for nine years.
Appearing with me today is Richard Balnis, a CUPE research officer. We'd like to thank you for this opportunity to appear before you today and for your interest in this very important safety issue.
We represent flight attendants throughout the Canadian airline industry. Flight attendants are the first line of defence when things go wrong, and since 9/11 we've been able to depend less and less on the flight deck crews. We deal with onboard fires, cabin decompressions, unruly passengers, security breaches—remember the shoe bomber?--medical emergencies, and conducting aircraft evacuations in the event of a crash.
Aircraft mechanical problems occur once every five hours every day; smoke in the cabin or cockpit occurs once every four days; and there's a serious medical emergency once a week. We deal with the serious incidents as well, and you'll remember Fredericton and the near tragedy in the Azores.
I'd like to turn the technical part of the briefing over to Richard.
Thank you.