Transport Committee on Feb. 7th, 2019

[Gary Ogden]

I can't give you actual numbers because I'm sure it changes by airport, but you have hangarage fees and you have the controlled environment at an airport that needs to be maintained from a safety and security perspective. We have flight instructors basically going out and de-icing airplanes, pushing them back either by hand or by machine, adding oils and doing maintenance work while they are supposed to be flight instructors because there's just not the money there. Again, that's a vicious circle, and it puts people off being flight instructors.

I can speak to Sudbury a little better because we're going up there and have taken a facility. The cost of hangaring the airplanes and of keeping them in a weather-protected environment when we have weather exactly like what we have just seen is not cheap.

De-icing at airports is not cheap. With regard to our business, we simply don't fly at big airports, so we don't have the benefit of central facilities, but we are forced to buy de-icing equipment. I believe there was even a study released a couple of weeks ago which said that northern airports are somewhat lacking in their de-icing capability and coverage.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Well, a lot of flight schools are at grass strips and things like that, too, where there's very little infrastructure to speak of.

[Gary Ogden]

Also, we have to wait until it thaws, or we have to wait until it goes.... I mean, we contemplated using Brampton, but we needed more access to better facilities—unfortunately, more expensive facilities. At Sudbury, we also have a second airport, just adjacent there, that we can use to increase our flying hours.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

I think I have a picture of that.

Just out of curiosity, what is the GO Green reference?

[Gary Ogden]

GO Green is the company I started many years ago with respect to cleaning and greening the airport environment.

I personally am involved with a number of initiatives. One is to try to electrify more of the airport ramp—again, cleaning and greening that ramp, making it safer for our staff out there. That's the holding company that the consultancy goes out from, but I have joined with Aura to be a component of this flight school.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Okay, thank you.

Ms. Super, I'll come back to you now.

You talked about the cost of fuel in your presentation. Flight schools generally rent their aircraft wet. When you rent a plane, you rent it wet. Can you explain, for those don't fly, what that means and if that approach is sustainable over the long term?

[Terri Super]

If the aircraft is “wet”, that means it has fuel in it. If a student or a renter is going to take one of our aircraft, it comes with fuel. If they go away to another airport, we will reimburse them at our cost. We won't reimburse them if they purchase fuel at a higher price at a different airport.

Some schools don't do it that way. Some operators actually do because the price of aviation fuel floats week to week, as the price of fuel does at the gas pumps. They rent it to the person dry, and for every flight, they figure out how much fuel has been used and apply the cost of the fuel onto the price of the flight.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

It sounds like a lot of extra paperwork to keep track of how much fuel you will need.

[Terri Super]

Yes, and that's why a lot of schools go with just wet.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

That makes sense.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much, Mr. Graham.

We'll move to Mr. Aubin.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'd like to thank the witnesses for being here today. Hearing what they have to say is quite enlightening.

My question is for you, Ms. Bell. In an industry where the issues are complex, you've put your finger on a problem all the witnesses have talked about—the training costs for students who choose this career path.

The problem, as I see it, is that models seem to vary from province to province, even territory to territory. For example, in Quebec, which I know more about because I live there, students have the option to train at a wholly private school that meets Transport Canada's standards or a school that is integrated into the college system.

Is there a model Quebec should conform to in an effort to harmonize things and, by extension, examine the impact on training costs?

[Heather Bell]

Thank you for that question.

Yes. If there was a more consistent model across the country, I believe that we would see streamlined training, certainly from province to province. The issue that I spoke about was with respect to the availability of student funding and how that varies from province to province.

With respect to how the training organizations operate province to province, I'm not an expert in that, but I do know that the Air Transport Association of Canada has put forth a model with respect to approved training organizations that would make a more uniform training system. Right now, the Canadian aviation regulations regulate the number of hours that are required to be accomplished prior to any student pilot receiving any level of licensing. I think that some of that needs to be re-examined about how the training is applied with respect to time. As other people have said, a simulator would be a very valuable asset for a training organization, but right now, the regulations don't allow much simulator time to be applied to a licence. Yes, if there were more uniform federal regulations, it would be very helpful.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you for that information.

My next question is for Mr. Ogden.

Mr. Ogden, the name of your company, Go Green Aviation, is inspiring. In another study the committee did, on the impact of aircraft noise in the vicinity of major airports, we learned how difficult it was for aviation and civil society to coexist.

Is it now possible to train pilots on electric airplanes, where the cost of buying those planes is comparable to that of gas-fuelled planes?

[Gary Ogden]

Thank you, Mr. Aubin.

I'm a big believer that anything that improves our environmental stewardship at airports is a positive thing. I don't necessarily like following Europe, and even some U.S. states, in what we do in Canada because I think we should lead, not follow.

The use of any non-flying, non-gas burning alternative is a positive. I think simulators are certainly an answer. I think the use of simulators and ground school elements can help us get over the national carrier pilot accessibility, with respect to fatigue. Yes, those companies don't want their pilots doing flight time in their four days off or any number of days off. However, non-flying and more systems and aids-related flying with simulators and the like can serve a lot of purposes. It's a lot safer, a a lot cleaner and we do have access then to a more available labour pool in terms of flight instruction.

I'm sorry about speaking to electric airplanes. It's not an area of expertise that I have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Mr. Aubin, you have 30 seconds.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

I hope we'll have an opportunity to hear more of what you have to say on the subject.

Mr. Armstrong, I'd like you to talk about the new agreement with Quebec on the development of digital pilot training.

[Joseph Armstrong]

I'm not familiar with which agreement you're talking about, unless you're referring to the agreement we have established with both the Quebec government and the federal government in terms of innovating, and the digital investments we are making in digitizing training.

I think the biggest change that's happened over the last, let's say, decade, has been a significant advancement in the science of learning and education, and applying the evolution of that science in learning to understanding better how to apply assets at various points along the pilot training curriculum. The whole concept of creating a system whereby you have a more efficient, more optimized, more tailored program to build people up to a level of competence can be done with things other than aircraft.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you, Mr. Armstrong.

We'll move to Mr. Sikand.

You have four minutes.

[Gagan Sikand, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm going to start off with a question for Mr. Ogden.

You hit some political trigger words for me: international and you choose Canada. I often like to amalgamate the two.

You said that the enemy for flight schools is attrition. Why is it that we can't turn to the international community to bring in trainers to help train Canadian pilots?

[Gary Ogden]

Mr. Sikand, the concept is a very good one.

We have looked, and we are looking at establishing an international element to the flight school we have. It will come down to the age-old recognition of standards and credentials that we face in many fields in Canada.

I'm not really up for lowering standards, but I am for recognizing standards. If international students and international flight instructors can fill that necessary gap for us and all we have to do is match the accreditations, then that's on us. Let's do it, because the solutions it provides are geometric in their impact.

[Gagan Sikand, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Thank you.

I have less time than normal, so I'm going to move to Ms. Super.

You were mentioning the price on pollution and how that affects the cost of operation. If smaller flight schools or airlines were to be excluded in an initial program but the larger carriers were priced but then given a rebate as they improved technology or became more efficient and had less of an impact on the environment, is this a system that you think would be favourable?

[Terri Super]

I can hardly hear you.

[Gagan Sikand, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Sorry.

You were mentioning carbon and how things can be taxed and how that affects operations. If smaller carriers or flight schools were excluded initially but larger ones had a tax but then were given a rebate as they became more efficient or lowered their carbon footprint, is that a model which you think would be favourable?

[Terri Super]

Yes, that could be feasible, as technology improves, for instance, with simulation or with the electric aircraft. They're not really at the stage where they're feasible to use for a flight school. The charge doesn't last long enough. Flight schools are required to have a minimum of 150 nautical mile cross-country flight for beginning students, and I don't believe there's any electric aircraft that can do that yet. I think that would be feasible if we could come up with something like that.

With the simulation, there needs to be, in my estimation, changes to the regulations on the amount of simulation that can be used. If that were possible, that would greatly aid it. For a commercial pilot, you need 25 hours of instrument time, of which only 10 hours can be used in a flight training device or simulator. If we could up the hours that are used in the simulator, that would greatly help and obviously reduce our carbon footprint.