Transport Committee on Feb. 7th, 2019

[The Chair (Hon. Judy A. Sgro (Humber River—Black Creek, Lib.)), Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I am calling the meeting to order. This is the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, 42nd Parliament. Pursuant to the order of reference from Wednesday, November 28, 2018, we are continuing our study of challenges facing flight schools in Canada.

I welcome all of you here today. This is our new meeting room in West Block and it's our first meeting here. We are joined today by, over and above the committee members, the mover of the motion, Mr. Fuhr. Welcome.

Today we have as witnesses, from Aéro Loisirs, Caroline Farly, Chief Pilot and Chief Instructor; from Air Canada Pilots Association, Captain Mike Hoff, External Affairs Committee; and from Carson Air, Marc Vanderaegen, Flight School Director, Southern Interior Flight Centre.

Mr. Vanderaegen, would you like to begin for five minutes?

[Marc Vanderaegen, Flight School Director, Southern Interior Flight Centre, Carson Air]

Madam Chair, good morning and thank you for the invitation to participate today. I'm going to be reading from notes because I want to make sure I don't miss anything.

Southern Interior Flight Centre is a part of the Carson group of companies, which provides flight training in Kelowna, B.C., and medevac, freight and fuel and hangarage services in Kelowna, Calgary, Vancouver and Abbotsford. We get to face the challenges related to the pilot shortage in all aspects, not just training, but that's the focus for today.

At the flight school level, we train students to become recreational, general commercial, airline and instructor pilots, and we have a commercial aviation diploma program with Okanagan College. We have formal training partnerships with WestJet Encore, Jazz, Porter, and Carson Air, as well as informal connections with many companies seeking our graduates. As to the challenges, some of these you will recognize from previous meetings.

First, there is inadequate financial assistance for students. The high cost of initial training for a commercial pilot's licence combined with low funding leaves students deeply in debt. Available student loan assistance combined through Canada student loans and B.C. student loans, for example, in our province is a mere $5,440 per semester. Put this against the demonstrated need for $23,519 per semester and this means the typical unmet need in this is $18,000 for each semester, or over $90,000 one might need for a five-semester diploma program.

Second, we are facing increasing training costs. To acquire instructor staff, we now have to train flight instructors at a burden of $10,000 per instructor. This used to be a revenue stream generated from commercial pilots who wanted to instruct and has, instead, become a cost that now has to be passed along to the general flight training student group, thereby increasing their financial burden. The costs of aircraft parts and fuel are also unstable and increasing significantly. For example, a single-engine Cessna 172 aircraft new from the factory is currently $411,000 U.S. and requires a lead time of 14 months for delivery. Used aircraft result in bidding wars and still run 50% to 75% of new cost before adding in the high cost of overhauling major components like engines and propellers.

Not only is the domestic training demand fuelling aircraft sales and prices but international companies have been purchasing aircraft in groups of 25 or more for their own training use overseas. In addition to costs being increased through those means, the pool of aircraft maintenance engineers is also being depleted, thereby requiring higher pay and incentives to attract and retain qualified maintenance personnel.

Our third challenge is our general lack of access to potential staff. With the current state of hiring in the industry, new pilots do not need to spend time instructing to build experience to move to being commercial operators. Many graduates are going straight to airlines or other companies directly out of flight school. The lower availability of instructors equals fewer instructors who advance through the instructor class system in order to become supervising instructors or to be able to train new instructors.

As a temporary solution, hiring qualified international applicants for instructor positions is not a viable option for us as the current LMIA process is overly onerous and the lengthy Transport Canada licence conversion process also holds up the administrative processing of international applicants. Medical requirements are also overly restrictive in some circumstances, for example, when dealing with correctable colour blindness or when preventing retired airline pilots who no longer hold medicals from teaching in a simulator for us as they were already able to do at the airlines.

To counter that, our recommendations fall into two groups.

First, we need more aviation-specific funding. I think that's pretty clear. We need to increase federal funding in the way of additional student loans and loan forgiveness programs for students. We need to look at federal funding support in the way of instructor training or retention grants to help alleviate the financial burden passed along to the students. We also need to look at federal funding or tax credits for capital purchases to also help cover the extremely high and increasingly higher equipment costs.

The second group of recommendations involves being able to increase access to instructor staff. First, an increase in student funding would allow flight training units to pay instructors and aircraft maintenance engineers higher wages to be able to retain them. Next, providing easier access in the short term for international employees through the LMIA programs, either on a fast track or by exempting suitable candidates entirely, would allow us to hire pilots or aircraft maintenance engineers who are available internationally to fill the gap.

Reducing turnaround times at Transport Canada for the licence-conversion—

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Excuse me, Mr. Vanderaegen, could you do your closing comments, please.

[Marc Vanderaegen]

Sure. In closing, I'll get straight to the point. We need these challenges to be addressed to ensure that we cannot only stay in business today but to expand to meet the growing need that's coming up through the market.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

Captain Hoff, you have five minutes, please.

[Captain Mike Hoff, Captain, External Affairs Committee, Air Canada Pilots Association]

Good morning, and thank you.

My name is Michael Hoff. I am an airline pilot, and I love my job. I'm a Boeing 787 captain at Air Canada based in Vancouver. I'm here representing the Air Canada Pilots Association.

Before I begin my remarks, I'd like to thank all of you for taking on this issue. Stable and predictable access to aviation is important in a country as large as ours. Many sectors are struggling with labour supply issues. For pilots, the issue is complex. In our submission to the committee, you will see that the cost of pilot training and limited access to training flight time are factors, and not only that, so are the poor safety records and working conditions for entry-level pilots, factors that are borne out in research we have done to show that young Canadians are more likely to be interested in a career as a nurse, a firefighter or even a video gamer than as a pilot.

The easiest way for me to explain this is to tell my story through personal experience. Not only am I a pilot, but my 26-year-old son now flies for the regional airline Jazz. Let me explain. Pilot training can run upwards of $90,000, a tremendous cost burden for families, and a difficult case to make if you need to secure a loan. For my son to get the training and accumulate the hours he needed, I ended up buying a small airplane, a PA-22, and we hired our own instructor. Yes, if you're wondering, it is somewhat like learning to drive a car: It can be better if someone else tells your kid what to do.

Flight schools across Canada are fragmented. Some are aligned with accredited colleges; others are not. Many are small, family-run operations. The Canada Revenue Agency does not recognize tuition expenses for all of them. Personally, I can tell you it took three years of fighting before CRA recognized my son's flight school for tax purposes. Not only that, I wasn't able to deduct any of the flying time in my own aircraft. Now contrast this with how easy it was to claim my other son's university tuition.

A lot of students think that when they get their pilot's licence, they can walk into a job at WestJet or Air Canada. In reality, it's more like pro sports. Before you make it to the big leagues, you have to literally get thousands of hours on the farm team. In Canada, that often means flying up north.

Let me speak frankly. Day-to-day regulatory oversight can be totally disconnected from the reality on the ground. Rules require self-monitoring, and that means pilots are supposed to decide for themselves whether or not they are fit for duty, which can be a tough decision when you are new and out of your element. In some operations, if a pilot reports that they are unfit to fly due to fatigue, they will be asked if they need a blankie and a pacifier to facilitate their nap. That is the culture.

If you need the job to get a better job, it can create a tremendous amount of pressure on inexperienced pilots, and it's one of the reasons that, when we look at accident rates in Canadian aviation, the majority of hull losses—in other words, the total loss of an aircraft, and far too often the souls on board—are in the far north. I can tell you honestly that, as a parent, I did not get a good night's sleep when my son was flying up north.

What can we do about this? The survey we commissioned showed very clearly that parents and students today are more attracted to the stable, safe pathways and immediate benefits that more traditional careers might offer. We need to reduce and eliminate the barriers that students face.

That means, one, we need policies to help defray the costs of entry, including making loans and tax credits available for flight schools. Two, we need to find ways to make accumulating flight and simulator time easier. Three, we need to encourage accredited public institutions to build flight schools. Four, we need to work on making aviation safer, which includes ensuring strong regulatory oversight where our new pilots are flying, especially in the north. Statistics show that we must do better. This protects not only our newest pilots but also their passengers.

I am proud to be a pilot. Nothing makes me happier than encouraging young people to consider this as a career. We have the best view in the world from our office, but there's work to be done.

I am grateful for the attention from this committee on these important issues.

I would specifically like to thank Mr. Fuhr for bringing this forward.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much, Captain Hoff.

Ms. Farly, go ahead, please.

[Caroline Farly, Chief Pilot and Chief Instructor, Aéro Loisirs]

Thank you. I will also read, and I'm going to do this presentation in French.

Good morning. Thank you for having me today.

I am Caroline Farly, owner of the Aéro Loisirs flying school. I am Chief Pilot and Chief Instructor, as well as the person in charge of aircraft maintenance and authorized agent for Transport Canada. I became an instructor in 2011 in order to pursue it as a career.

I want to thank Louise Gagnon, who was a pilot and class 1 instructor at Cargair for 25 years, and Rémi Cusach, founder of the ALM flying school, also class 1 instructor for 25 years and now retired. Both are currently delegated examiners at Transport Canada and helped me prepare this presentation.

Lengthy student admission delays are a problem for flying schools. Behind the problem is an instructor shortage, which is not improving. It is urgent to address our inability to meet the current and growing demand of commercial pilot licence candidates.

It is no longer necessary to go through the training process to accumulate flying hours. Only pilots who truly show interest will become instructors. Inspiration should be drawn from the conclusions of this study to promote the value of the flight instructor profession, the current perception of which is definitely impeding candidate recruitment.

Pilots who have decided to pursue a career as instructors are few in the network and are mainly school founders, examiners and chief instructors. They have an immeasurable wealth of knowledge in training and aviation and have been playing a leading role over the past 30 years in the establishment of flying schools. However, they are approaching the age of retirement, selling their schools and leaving an enormous void in the field.

That is what happened with the school I took over in 2013. Until the founder retired in 2018, we were two career instructors, but now it's just me. I like to think that our enthusiasm has strongly influenced and inspired pilots we have trained to become instructors, as access to role models or mentors has always been a key to success in professional recruitment.

Instruction is the least valued and the lowest paid aspect of aviation. That is the harsh reality. Schools are paying wages to independent workers instead of salaries to employees. Weather-related loss of income is considerable, both for flight schools and for workers, not to mention the negative impact the loss has on the region where our students live. The demand for our services increases significantly when students are on vacation during the summer and during holidays. Last-minute cancellations because of the weather or mechanical failures make the enforcement of labour standards difficult and costly.

Although instructors at our school are relatively well paid because they receive a significant bonus, the fact remains that our operations impose a ceiling on us. The cost of maintenance and the purchase of aircraft parts and fuel are increasing while we face income variations. Pilot training is expensive, and we are trying to keep its cost at acceptable levels that make aviation accessible. Those costs fluctuate and increase, but the cost of service cannot follow suit.

The big question is: who will train the instructors of tomorrow? Only the most senior instructors—those in class 1—who have accumulated 750 flying hours as instructors can train flight instructors. That is essentially what is stated in standard 421.72 of the Canadian Aviation Regulations.

Today, it is possible to become a class 1 instructor after only one or two seasons. Airlines compete for experienced pilots—all experienced instructors and class 1 instructors—over other instructors and professional pilots lacking additional qualifications. We will witness a gradual drop in the quality of training and a disappearance of role models and mentors with a wealth of experience and operational and practical knowledge.

The reality is also that experienced instructors were running flying schools across Canada. Declining experience levels in that area are certainly likely to affect the quality of the training of new instructors. Currently, Transport Canada is mobilizing class 1 instructors to deal with those challenges, and that highly significant and constructive initiative shows that the department is serious about taking action.

The majority of class 1 instructors currently working are over the age of 50, and I am concerned about becoming one of the rare class 1 instructors with more than 10 years of experience. I am already one of the few, if not the only, woman who owns a flying school.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Please give your closing comments.

[Caroline Farly]

In closing, one of my last concerns is the availability of flight examiners for flight instructors. That issue needs to be addressed because a flight examiner for flight instructors must currently be an airline pilot, and that complicates the scheduling of instructor exam activities.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

We are going to questions from our members.

We have Ms. Block for six minutes, please.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I want to welcome our guests here this morning and, as well, echo your appreciation to Mr. Fuhr for bringing his motion forward. I believe it was unanimously supported, so we recognize the very important role that flight schools have in our airline industry.

I want to go back to the testimony of Captain Hoff. If you wouldn't mind recapping for me, I think you outlined three policies you believed the government should undertake in order to address some of the issues for young pilots who are seeking to get more experience and perhaps make it easier for that to happen.

[Capt Mike Hoff]

I highlighted four points. They were to improve working conditions for new pilots in Canada's north, encourage accredited public institutions to build flight schools, make it easier for students to accumulate flight and simulator time, and examine options for reducing costs for students, like making it easier to get tax deductions for their education.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

All of those would touch upon the things you have heard, not only perhaps, from your son and his experience, but also from other young pilots, for whom some of these actually are real barriers to pursuing a career in this industry.

[Capt Mike Hoff]

That's correct.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you. I appreciate that.

I would like to follow up on the testimony of Ms. Farly. I appreciate what you were saying at the end of your testimony, in terms of being one of the only females—or the only female—who owns a flight school.

[Caroline Farly]

I think I'm one of the only. I'm not sure if there is another one, so I don't want to proclaim myself to be the only one, but I do not know another.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Okay.

I know time is short, but you were starting out on that train of thought. Was there anything you wanted to add in regard to that?

[Caroline Farly]

In regard to that, I think I had completed that issue. However, it's a whole generation—

I'll speak in French.

The idea here is continuity. We are currently lacking succession and there are no more instructors. Even I, as one of the rare class 1 instructors still active with a certain number of years of experience, need support and a group of peers—other class 1 instructors. We no longer have role models or support.

A process must really be implemented to help retain our instructors and make the profession into a viable vocation. Right now, the instructor profession is negatively perceived because the only thing said about it is that it is not well paid, which is unfortunately true. No one is talking about the richness of that career and the experience of flying with so many different people. That whole issue must really be looked into.

I think that was the main point.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you.

You also talked about the costs of operating a flight school. I'm wondering about the other side of the balance sheet, which would be revenue. Where do you get your revenue from?

[Caroline Farly]

For any school or aviation service, the revenue comes when the plane takes off and when we give class instructions. We give theoretical classes, so there's revenue from that, but then we have the office. We have the Internet, so I won't go into that business side. If we don't give theoretical classes and we don't have planes flying, there's no revenue. That's also why instructors....

For example, starting in November until today, we've all seen the weather, and when you're in aviation, you don't look at the weather the same way. I don't know if you all have seen how bad the weather has been for flying. That's less revenue. How can we with travailleur autonome ensure a stable work payment when we can't guarantee such a high revenue?

I have a nice team of instructors right now. Because we are career-motivated instructors, I have a really strong and nice team right now, but one is going to leave in a year. He wants to stay, but he's going to be wrapped up by a company. He promised me one year, maybe two, because he wants to stay in the region. He doesn't want to fly an airliner so much. He prefers staying at home. But you cannot compare salaries.

I chose to be an instructor because I love it but also because I have a son at home and I wanted to make sure that I came home at night. We can give instructors different incentives, but right now, the salary is not one of them, unfortunately.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you.

Do I have any time left?

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

You have 30 seconds.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

We'll move to Mr. Fuhr.