Evidence of meeting #126 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was airline.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
I'll follow up on one of Mr. Liepert's points.
The new runway at Calgary is 14,000 feet, if I recall. At Toronto Pearson, a lot of the runways are under 10,000 feet. I don't know the answer to this, but is there any impact on airplane noise from different runway lengths and boundary zones of airports for surrounding communities? How much of a difference does that make?
Capt Scott Wilson
One of the primary reasons for the length of the runways in Calgary is, of course, that the airport is almost 3,600 feet above sea level. Atmospheric conditions, density or altitude mean you are normally going to require more runway.
Whenever we do take off, we try to do what's called a balanced field takeoff. We try to use the minimum amount of thrust to depart a runway. The benefit of a longer runway is that it allows us to basically use more runway as we gain speed so that we can use less thrust for takeoff.
With regard to a shorter runway, the requirement would be to be closer to maximum thrust for departure.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Then a shorter runway does have an impact on noise for sure.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
All right.
With regard to the A320 noise reduction kit—I know that WestJet isn't affected—you said that Airbus doesn't have enough of these available. I have seen a picture of this kit. It's basically a butterfly clip that you put on the wing. How long have they been available from Airbus?
Vice-President, Flight Operations, Air Canada
It looks like a clip that you put on the wing, but in order to put that clip on, you have to secure it inside the wing. This means that generally an aircraft has to be in a major overhaul, because you have to drain the fuel tank of all the fuel and you have to open up the entire wing. Then you have to have individuals climb into the wing to secure it and hook it up.
Airbus, right now, has a shortage. We had a plan in place. Just like with everything, it takes time to get the plan in place. Unfortunately, Airbus doesn't have the kits. We've asked Airbus if we can manufacture our own kits, and they told us that we can't. It owns the patent on the kit.
We're doing everything we can—trust me—to get this installed as soon as possible. I know more about these generators now than I ever wanted to know about them. Again, it's a 3% reduction in noise, whereas a new airplane is 60%, so that's where Air Canada has really put its efforts.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
How many A320s are there in the fleet?
You gave us percentages, not a raw number.
December 11th, 2018 / 9:10 a.m.
Vice-President, Flight Operations, Air Canada
Yes, we gave percentages. What we're doing right now.... We have a combination of the 737 MAX arriving and the Airbus fleet leaving. To actually come up with a hard number every single time, I would have to take that back to our maintenance to get the hard number. We're going to eventually end up with about 50 Airbuses, and they will all be converted with this change.
The Airbus is a very quiet airplane. It just has a little whining noise just in this one section. We're going to fix it, but it's a 3% reduction. Right now, we're worried about bringing the new A220s in, and the new 737 MAX. Next year we're getting 18 of the 737 MAX. That's our number one emphasis right now.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Are retro fixes like this common on other aircraft? Is this something that has happened before, or is this new to the A320?
Vice-President, Flight Operations, Air Canada
As far as I'm aware, it's just for the A320 problem.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Okay, so no other aircraft.... Aircraft manufacturers don't have a habit of saying, “Here, we found this little doohickey that will reduce the noise on your airplane.”
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Another line I want to take on this is consumers' choice.
Do you, as airlines, do anything to inform consumers about the noise of the aircraft that they can be booking their flights on or the options that they have—a reminder, for example, that a flight is going to be at night over a community? Is there anything being done on that side of things by any airline?
Samuel Elfassy Vice-President, Safety, Air Canada
There is nothing that is currently accomplished to communicate that question that you just asked.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Is there any intention to look at that kind of thing, even as a public relations thing? You could say, “Just so you are aware, this flight costs this much, but guess what? It doesn't bother the neighbourhood, versus this flight, which does.”
Vice-President, Safety, Air Canada
We provide opportunities for passengers to buy offsets to reduce their carbon footprints, but nothing as it relates to noise currently.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Mr. Wilson, you talked a lot about the RNP approaches earlier, the RNP program. In your own experience as a pilot, does that have any impact on your flight—having the straight-in approaches versus the older tradition of holds and...?
Capt Scott Wilson
Yes, it's one of the greatest innovations, I think, that we'll see, particularly as it pertains to safety, noise and carbon footprints.
RNP approaches are unique in many ways. The first thing is, of course, that it utilizes the satellite constellation, the navigation capability of the aircraft and the training of the pilots. There are no ground-based requirements whatsoever. It allows you to basically use different separation for terrain, and Calgary is quite unique. We actually have the first approaches in the world that have been qualified to do what's called RNP on arrival, which allows us to basically do the curved approaches and have reduced separation that way.
What it also allows us to do is either avoid terrain or avoid noise-sensitive areas. The benefit, of course, is that you not only are always in constant descent, which keeps the thrust back and the noise down, but you also can basically curve the path as required. Straight-in approaches are required when you have, say, ground-based navigation systems such as an ILS, an instrument landing system. The benefit of RNP is that we can tailor it uniquely to the situation that we're working in—the airport environment, the communities, etc.—while gaining greater efficiency and safety, and the smallest noise footprint possible.
Liberal
Capt Scott Wilson
You'd be surprised what you can actually get in a configuration a small aircraft now to fly these approaches—so, yes.
NDP
Pierre Nantel NDP Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
My thanks to all the witnesses for being here.
We have been talking about A320 and C Series aircraft, but I would like to know whether the new Boeing 777 is equipped with the Pratt & Whitney PurePower engine. Can anyone tell me that?
Vice-President, Flight Operations, Air Canada
The new Boeing aircraft use a consortium engine. Pratt & Whitney is involved with them. There's also a European manufacturer on it.
