Good morning. Thank you for inviting Ottawa Aviation Services to be part of the committee's study of flight training schools in Canada.
Our school of professional pilot training is specifically designed for our students to succeed in this industry. The quality of our programs has been recognized by Canadian airlines such as Porter, Jazz, Air Georgian and Keewatin Air. They have formed close partnerships with us now as a result of the quality of the training we're providing.
Thanks to our program, successful graduates who meet the required standards and benchmarks of the course can be put into fast-track paths to a job on the right seat of an airliner, from the CRJ aircraft to Q400 and Boeing 737, a fairly large piece of equipment. I am immensely proud of the graduates and the staff who have actually achieved this training for them. Over the past seven years, we're proud to say, we've had 100% of our graduates employed in the sector as pilots.
OAS is dedicated to good Canadian corporate citizenship. We understand the importance of the aviation sector and its tight link with the socio-economic fabric of Canada, particularly in our northern communities, where aviation is at the centre of their economic development.
I encourage you to review our written brief. It outlines ways in which the federal government and flight training organizations such as OAS can work together to address the pilot shortage to the benefit of our national aviation sector and the Canadian economy as a whole.
No one in this room needs to be convinced of the realities of the impending global pilot shortage. Last year in Montreal, at the ICAO summit of next-generation aviation professionals, the secretary general noted that in 2036, worldwide, 600,000 pilots will be needed to meet the global demand. Within our borders, we are actually talking about an acute pilot shortage that is already creating some issues in specific regions by cancelling flights, and in certain sectors, with some medevac, cargo, and charter flights being cancelled.
For many industries, economies and people, air travel is a necessity, a must. While 2036 seems like a long time from now or a distant future, the reality is that these pilots need about two to four years to be trained and, once they are trained, another three to five years to become captains. The flight schools are uniquely positioned to help face this challenge head on—we see it every day—as long as we are given the tools and the resources to do so.
The first thing we need to focus on is support for our students. Higher education can be expensive, and students want to know that their investment will pay off with a rewarding career. Given the impending labour shortage in the aviation sector, we believe that the federal government has a role in providing leadership in order to encourage more students to choose flight training. This includes taking steps to allow students access to greater financial support through various means, which the Air Transport Association of Canada, of which OAS is a member, is working on. I believe you will be hearing from them sometime next week.
Currently, as an example, time spent in an aircraft, which is what we call “flight time”, is a requirement for all flight training programs, yet this flight time does not qualify towards instructional time. Therefore, students are not able to qualify for as much financial support as they could. While this is somewhat a provincial issue, by amending the terms of the Canada student loan program, the government will show leadership and encourage the provinces to follow suit.
Experienced flight instructors are the next part of the issue. School like ours across the country are reporting backlogs of students wishing to begin their flight training. Today at OAS, we are approaching 55 students who are waiting for flight training, but we are not able to do that due to the shortage of instructors. The reality is that experienced flight instructors are often scooped up by air carriers after only a few months of instructing. The issue of instructor retention needs to be addressed. It's at an all-time low today. Some of my colleagues in the flight training industry are reporting a turnover of way above 100%.