Thank you very much.
My name is Tim Perry. I'm the Canadian president of the Air Line Pilots Association, International and a 737 pilot at WestJet airlines. I have been a professional pilot for 18 years.
The Air Line Pilots Association, International—ALPA—on behalf of 59,000 professional pilots at 35 airlines in North America, including 16 in Canada, appreciates the opportunity to participate in the study by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities of the aircraft certification process in Canada.
Before beginning my remarks, I would like to offer our deepest condolences to the families and friends of those who perished in the Boeing 737 Max accidents, and in particular Mr. Moore and Mr. Njoroge, who took the time to relate their stories today. I found them very moving and very meaningful. I want to thank them for that.
It is in this context that I offer our recommendations for not only the Max's return to service, but also for future evaluations of new designs and modifications to existing designs.
In March, in testimony from Transport Canada's director general of aviation, Nicholas Robinson, and the director of national aircraft certification, David Turnbull, you heard their perspective on the role of airline pilots during the certification process for introduction of a new or derivative Canadian aircraft into service in Canada or the validation process for foreign manufactured and certified aircraft. They also provided information about the role of line pilots in the effort to return the Boeing 737 Max to Canadian skies.
In this brief I will emphasize the need to involve current line pilots more formally in Transport Canada's work. I will also highlight ALPA's unique qualifications to be a primary source of expertise to assist Transport Canada in its evaluation.
When an aircraft is introduced into service, whether it is new or a derivative design developed in Canada or in another country, ALPA offers its expertise to examine training and operating requirements from the perspective of pilots who are current on that type, or a similar type, to evaluate operational procedures in simulators and in flight if necessary. I will refer to them as line pilots.
ALPA line pilots operate into and out of approximately 700 airports around the globe, in all weather conditions. No organization represents such a diverse environment of operating conditions.
While Transport Canada's certification pilots certainly have a key role to play, given their background and training in flight testing to ensure that all steps in the certification process are addressed, ultimately it is line pilots who must be adequately prepared and trained to manage the handling qualities and emergencies that may occur. Therefore, systems and procedures should be evaluated by line pilots to ensure that the training is adequate. This is where ALPA can play a key role.
ALPA is uniquely qualified for two reasons. First, the ALPA Air Safety Organization is the largest non-governmental organization of its kind in the world. Unlike many other pilot organizations, we have a large number of current line pilots who specialize in various aspects of aviation and are organized by discipline within our air safety organization.
Of relevance to your study, two of these disciplines are the aircraft design and operation group and the human factors and training group. Pilot subject matter experts, or SMEs, in these two groups are supported by ALPA's full-time professional staff.
ALPA devotes substantial resources in support of the Air Safety Organization so that it can work with manufacturers and regulators to ensure that passenger and cargo aircraft meet the intent of applicable federal and international regulations and standards, that design certification and operational standards keep pace with the industry, and that newly introduced designs provide a level of safety that is at least equivalent to that of previous models. Additional information about the Air Safety Organization can be provided to this committee upon request.
A second reason that ALPA is unique compared with the government test pilots involved in the certification process is that our pilots offer a valuable perspective that can only come from those who are currently involved in the daily operations of airliners.
Mr. Turnbull said, in response to a question concerning the role pilot associations play in the certification process, that they are not typically involved until a subsequent step, which is referred to as the “operational evaluation”. He said that if there are issues when the regulator's evaluators go through the process, they may select “naive candidates, which are sometimes airline pilots”, to evaluate the proposed training requirements in a simulator.
It has been our experience that involvement of line pilots in the certification or validation process is more the exception than the rule.
I recommend that ALPA's participation in certification and validation efforts be given a higher profile.
Specific to the return to service of the Max, Mr. Robinson emphasized the importance of pilot association involvement. He is aiming for the associations to be standing by the minister when he is confident that it is ready to return to service and that a total of two representatives from the operators and pilot associations will be involved in the work of the Joint Operational Evaluation Board, the JOEB.
We are pleased—