Transport Committee on June 16th, 2009

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

I should say, what is the total cost?

[John Crichton]

I'll have to get back to you with precise figures, but it's roughly $750,000 a year versus $1.25 million—in that order of magnitude.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

What percentage of it would come from operations at the airport—any of it?

[John Crichton]

We charge terminal fees at airports where we have staffed facilities, either an air control tower or a flight service station. However, the charging formula is national. It's based on aircraft weight; it isn't based on the airport's specific costs. We have a flat national fee that applies, so that it doesn't matter.

If you take an airport such as Toronto, which has 450,000 movements a year, I think the terminal charge today there for a B-737 is roughly $1,500. That $1,500 is what that jet will pay no matter where it lands in Canada. Whether it's in Toronto, Montreal, Thunder Bay, Yellowknife, Kelowna, Fort McMurray—you name it—that's what it will pay. If we changed to site-specific charging—and some countries do this—we would end up with that airplane probably paying $200 in Toronto and paying $7,000 or $8,000 or $9,000 to land in Yellowknife or Fort McMurray.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Is this $1,500 strictly for flight services, rather than for the entire airport operation?

[John Crichton]

It's strictly for the services that we provide.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

What is the total that an airplane is paying when it lands? Do you know that figure? That would be determined by the airport. Are the other charges that airports have based on their own particular costs, while only yours are based on this national scheme?

[John Crichton]

Ours are based on a national formula. That's a practice that has long been established. It's to try to avoid discriminatory treatment throughout the country. I think it's one that has worked well.

The alternative model is site-specific charging. The problem with it is that it's very volume sensitive. For a given amount of fixed cost that you would have at an airport, the less traffic you have to spread it over, the higher the unit cost becomes. It becomes very dramatic if we go away from the current system, and we don't propose to go away from it, because it seems to work well, and all of our customers seem to find that it's fine.

We are concerned in this particular case that to the extent we would incur more cost by putting a tower back in, it would not be borne by the people who are asking for it; it's going to be borne by the rest of the people in the country who don't even fly to Mirabel.

In our view, it is a good candidate to look at and tell them that if they really want that service, even though it doesn't fall within any of our level of service guidelines and neither Transport nor we feel that it's a safety issue, we can provide it, but they will have to offset the cost.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Just doing the math, you have 25,000 landings there, and you're saying it's costing you $750,000 for a flight service station. Doesn't that work out to about $30 a landing?

[John Crichton]

The fees vary with the weight of the aircraft. Very small airplanes weigh hardly anything. The training aircraft are on a flat annual fee of $70, and they can go anywhere they want in the country. It all depends on the weight of the aircraft.

But that's not the issue. The issue is that if we were to convert back to a tower, we would incur an additional $500,000 in costs. The way the formulas work, that money would have to come from other places. Bearing in mind that the company is based at Mirabel and that virtually all of the flights they are operating are designated as test flights and they're not paying us anything, it's a bit of a sticky wicket. We're not trying to get in the way of anybody, but at some point we have to be fair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

Ms. Hoeppner.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I appreciate your frankness and I agree it is a difficult issue. I think the answers that you're providing us are forthright, and for my part, I appreciate that. I think it helps put this whole issue into perspective, as difficult as it is.

Can you explain for me as a layman the difference between the service that's provided with an air traffic controller or the flight service station? Is there a difference as far as safety issues are concerned?

[John Crichton]

Yes. Air traffic control provides positive control. The controller's main job is to keep aircraft separated so that they do not run into each other, in essence, and on the manoeuvring surface of the airport to make sure they're not going to run into a snowplow or some other vehicle out servicing the airport.

In order to do that, the pilots have to follow the air traffic controller's instructions. There's no discretion, unless there's an emergency. The controller tells the pilot to hold or denies a clearance to take off or a clearance to land. They'll only do that because they don't feel it's safe, because there is a potential obstruction.

In the flight advisory world, what happens is that the flight service specialist provides the pilot with all the information. He will tell a pilot what's going on, and then it's up to the pilot to decide the right thing to do.

Pilots are trained to operate in both and they're quite comfortable operating in both. The difference between the two is traffic volume. Obviously, in a given amount of air space, the more aircraft you add to it simultaneously, the more complex it becomes and the greater the possibility of something going wrong. That's why, everywhere in the world, we determine which level of service is correct based on the traffic volumes.

Interestingly, we use 60,000 movements a year as a guideline in Canada. In the U.S., it's 100,000 movements a year, and in other countries it's different numbers.

But that's essentially it. I guess it's the difference, if you want to use the analogy of driving, between coming to an intersection that has traffic lights and one that just has a stop sign. With the traffic lights, there is no discretion: if the light is red, you do not go through the intersection; you wait until it's green. That's like the controller telling you that it's okay, you can go now. With the stop sign, you look both ways and you determine when it's safe to go. That's the simplest analogy. But they all have the same information.

I believe Mr. Laframboise mentioned two incidents earlier. We've analyzed both of those incidents. They had nothing to do with the level of service at all. It wouldn't have made a difference if there had been three towers there at the time.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

I have one more question.

How often is the activity reviewed? How often are you looking at airports and their activities? Are you tracking it constantly?

[John Crichton]

We're tracking it constantly.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

If activity were to increase and it warranted a control tower, then it would be put in place?

[John Crichton]

Absolutely. In fact, we just put a control tower in Fort McMurray, because it was a flight service station. It grew up through 60,000 movements, and we put a control tower in last year.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Good.

I'd like to share my time with Mr. Jean.

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

I'm glad you mentioned Fort McMurray, and I appreciate your coming here today.

I want to confirm, then, that currently we or the federal government, Nav Canada, or the taxpayers of Canada are subsidizing the test flights at Mirabel to the tune of approximately $200,000 per year and that there's a $500,000 savings on the tower not being there, because it's no longer necessary.

Having the busiest single runway in North America in Fort McMurray, I wonder whether that means Nav Canada has more money in its budget to give us another runway.

[John Crichton]

First of all—

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

That was a joke. I know you're not responsible for that. We do produce 6% of the GDP of the country, so I just thought it might be appropriate.

[John Crichton]

The taxpayers are not subsidizing the difference. Nav Canada does not get a dollar of public money and never has. Those who are subsidizing the difference, if you want to put it that way, are other airlines, in their fees, including foreign carriers as well as domestic Canadian carriers. That's where the difference goes.

The point I was trying to make is that there is an acceptance that it is reasonable in this country--and I used the example of Yellowknife or Fort McMurray--that you would not pay $8,000 to $10,000 to land a B-737 there and only $200 in Toronto, that this would not be fair. So people have accepted it. But when you get into a unique situation such as we have here in Mirabel, where you're so far below the level of service standard, to say that even though there is not a legitimate safety case we still want to have a tower, and then to ask those other people who never go near Mirabel to pay another $500,000, we think, is just going too far.

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

I understand, and that was actually my point.

Another point is that I actually have started my pilot's licence. I'm a student pilot. I do solos, and as a result of that I promised my friends two things: the first is that I would warn them whenever I go in the air and make sure they're not in the vicinity; and secondly, I would study and memorize the book. When I studied the book I was surprised to see how much coordination there is in circuit patterns. In fact, these people who do test pilot programs are the best of the best. They've logged tens of thousands of hours. It's surprising how expert they are and how much the safety record in Canada is, as a whole, as a result of circuit patterns, as a result of levels, etc. I just want to confirm for those people listening that there's a huge organization there, and I am quite surprised at how structured it is and how safe it is.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Dhaliwal.

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

That was a commercial.