Transport committee  Today, a pilot coming out of school is going to fly firefighting planes or small planes. He can also be a flight instructor. However, there is so much pressure on pilots, there is less and less access to these small companies. So, in the future, fewer and fewer young pilots will be able to do the number of flying hours needed to get into the big airlines.

Transport committee  Thank you. One thing that could help me fairly quickly would be to re-evaluate the flight and duty requirements for 703 and 704 operators and, equally, reviewing this new regulation for regional operators like Pascan Aviation. A one-size-fits-all approach does not work for regional aviation today.

Transport committee  Absolutely. It saved my business.

Transport committee  Prepandemic, we were at probably about 140. Today we're at 200.

Transport committee  I really appreciate that. We have, as you know, a pilot shortage. It's not a surprise. It's been there for a long time. It's not going away. We're able to train new pilots. The problem we're having is getting those pilots qualified with enough hours to fly the main line. We're unable to replace the number of qualified pilots we're losing to the bigger carriers.

Transport committee  You have to understand that a pilot who has just finished school is not a pilot I can hire tomorrow, because he doesn't have the required flight hours. For example, Sunwing has received 600 applications, but none of these people have the required flight hours or experience to fly.

Transport committee  Good afternoon. Honestly, when I was young, I was really attracted to aviation. It's much less common for young people to be interested in it today. I have three young children, and I never heard them or their friends talk about aviation. Back then, working in aviation was almost a trend.

Transport committee  As I said earlier, before the pandemic, we were getting a good number of CVs on a regular basis. We managed to keep control over the experience level of the crews. A lot of pilots were working fewer hours, so it was a little easier to put them in the cockpit. The CVs we get today are from pilots who have 200 to 250 hours of experience.

Transport committee  Thank you so much. My name is Julian Roberts. I'm with Pascan Aviation. We're a regional airline operating on 703, 704 and 705 air operator certificates. We serve 11 regions in Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Ontario, moving 7,000 passengers per month on approximately 40 flights per day.

Transport committee  One thing, really quickly, that could be done is that we bring it down to per seat, not per aircraft weight or aircraft size. If everybody's paying the same per seat, it's equitable. Just to give you an example, we started to fly out of the Dorval Pierre Elliott Trudeau Airport to be able to give our regions access to international flights.

Transport committee  Thank you very much. Airport fees in general include landing fees, terminal fees, terminal improvement fees and security-related fees. Flying a large jet in the Quebec regions—it wouldn't really be practical, since the population size wouldn't justify it—would cost me less than flying a small regional plane.

Transport committee  What we've noted and heard over the years is there should be a minimum fee. In our case, those fees are very close to what larger carriers pay. For us, it's the same thing when it comes to NAV CANADA. We pay $1,486 for a 33‑seat aircraft. If I were flying a 143‑seat jet, say a Boeing 737‑700, the fee would be $2,006 per day.

Transport committee  Good morning. Basically, you'd like to know whether the government can help improve service between smaller carriers to connect with Air Canada. Is that right?

Transport committee  Yes, there sure is. I've been in the Quebec regional aviation business for 26 years. I've seen a number of companies come and go as soon as a major player entered the picture. The major carriers would lower their prices to drive the smaller carriers out of business. This went on for years and years, at least since I began my career in 1998.

Transport committee  Hello, everybody. Thank you so much for having us today. A lot of what I'm going to say is really going to echo Mr. Priestley and Mr. Sparling, as they are also airline operators. Pascan is a regional airline out of Quebec. We serve 11 destinations, a bit remote in the province of Quebec.