Madam Chair, it is with great pleasure that I present to this committee the concerns and challenges facing Canadian flight schools. As the chief pilot of Super T Aviation based in Medicine Hat, Alberta, I have over 13,000 hours in medevac, training, and charter and scheduled flying experience. While I have provided the committee with a briefing document outlining our recommendations, I would like to highlight three categories for the committee to consider: student support, instructor attention and school support.
Pursuing a career as a professional pilot costs between $75,000 and $85,000 in training alone, not including living expenses. Lack of funds or their unavailability are often the reasons for student dropout or students' inability to consider a career in aviation. Therefore, we are calling for increased government-backed financial aid and assistance for flight training. This would allow students to obtain financing through the government and/or a commercial pathway and eliminate a major barrier facing Canadians interested in becoming pilots.
Amending the Canada-provincial job grant program to allow flight schools to obtain funds for employee training without the need for the training to be done by third party providers would remove another barrier facing pilots who want to improve flying qualifications. Most flight schools are the only training unit at an airport. To receive advanced training through this federal assistance program, these pilots would have to move to a new city and new airport to obtain training that could last anywhere from one to six months.
Retention of experienced flight instructors has become a major issue facing the flight school community. While flight schools would traditionally mentor an inexperienced flight instructor for one and a half to two years before they moved on to bigger, faster aircraft with a charter or small airline operator, these days the progression can be as little as a matter of months. This puts a tremendous strain on flight schools, which must constantly be training and hiring new students. This also adds a safety concern where inexperienced pilots are focused on moving on to their next job and end up flying more complex aircraft without sufficient experience.
In order to rectify this situation, I recommend that the government offer loan forgiveness for instructors similar to what is offered to medical...working in the remote and rural areas. I also recommend legislation similar to that of the United States, where pilots are required to obtain a minimum of 1,500 hours of flying experience before they are eligible to fly for the major airlines. Regulations such as these would not only aid flight schools but also small charter and medevac operations.
We need to provide help for flight schools. Flight schools are the backbone of the aviation industry and we cannot keep up with the demand, given the high cost of training which is partly due to government policy. It's a harsh reality that aircraft burn fossil fuels. The cost of fuel is one of the largest expenses for a flight school. This cost of course is passed on to the student as part of instructional fees.
To help keep the cost of training down for the student, we recommend that the federal government: one, exclude flight schools from the carbon tax, which has increased and/or will increase the cost of training for the student dramatically; two, reprise the federal excise tax for fuel on instructional aircraft; three, support the development of alternate biofuels for aircraft or electric aircraft; and four, financially support flight schools in their use of specialized equipment that is required for flight training, including flight training devices commonly known as simulators. These devices increase competency and experience in a controlled environment but come at a cost usually several times greater than the cost of a flight school's other capital assets.
In conclusion, this committee has been presented with statistics of the pilot shortage from various witnesses appearing before it. The numbers are real and the shortage is real. Flight schools are tasked with producing safe, dependable and professional pilots in ever-increasing numbers in order to sustain and in fact expand the growing aviation industry. This can only be accomplished by government and the aviation industry working together to provide students, instructors and flight schools with the resources and help they need.
Thank you very much for your time. I look forward to answering any of your questions.