AVCANADA

Good Afternoon,
This winter we will operate a fleet of 24 B737s. In addition to the 24 aircraft, we will be bringing in an
additional 5 aircraft on wet lease for a total of 29 planes. These 29 aircraft will be operated with our flight
attendants. We realize that the pilot group has expressed concerns about wet lease operations for Sunwing
Vacations, but keep in mind the Tour Operator’s needs are greater than the airline is capable of supplying at
this time.
We have upgraded approximately 34 First Officers which will provide Crew Scheduling 122 SWG Captains
this winter. Since the beginning of the year, we have hired an additional 15 permanent First Officers. We also
plan to hire 20 Canadian seasonal contract First Officers. As a result, we will have increased our peak
complement of Canadian pilots by almost 25%.
Our Planning Department has indicated that the winter 2012/13 bases will be;
 YVR
 YYC
 YYZ
 YOW
 YUL
 YQB
We expect to put out a bid for winter seasonal bases within the next few weeks. We are looking forward to
an exciting winter with expanded opportunities for our Canadian crews.

hey patrick,
why on earth would you copy-and-paste a company memo onto the public forum?
have you ever noticed a small print attached to all company puplications advising the recepient of the confidantiality of the company communications?
give your friggin' head a shake!

Seems like it's the government's fault for having too many "loopholes"..is it really the fault of a company who simply jumps through them?

Well said ea306,

" I totally agree that SWG should have equality in numbers. This is something that is being addressed I assure you... Thanks for your concern. One thing you have to understand is that we will always have European pilots fly for us in the Winter. As well, we will fly in Europe for the Summers.

Our union has turned down the F Reg flying until acceptible working conditions can be agreed to. Company has said they will do a lot more hiring once the pilot group agrees to it. We shall see.

Gillies: FYI.
- All Canadian Pilots are required to be issued a work visa from the EU Country they are based to operate a Wet Lease in the EU. All non EU passport holders have a work visa issued.


Our union has turned down the F Reg flying until acceptible working conditions can be agreed to. Company has said they will do a lot more hiring once the pilot group agrees to it. We shall see.

Gillies. I see improvements from within and time will tell if the positive trend will continue. Personally I am very excited to see the developments of this year and look forward to the coming winter season.

Meanwhile I am over in Europe flying European passengers for a European Airline in a wet leased B737-800 making some good coin. I wonder how many European pilots are crying fowl? Certainly not on AvCanada.

BTW,
Nice photo! I was in PMI on that day...probably me flying too...cool!

Gilles, yes we require work visas depending on the length of stay and the country we're in. How is that fishy? Secondly the pilot group does not want forced deployments on F Reg aircraft without proper terms and conditions. Wet leases are way better for our group. Our contract, our work rules, our dispatch, crew sched and Maint.

Now can you please direct me to your posts on air transat hiring foreign pilots through Canjet? What is ALPA transat/Canjet doing about it?

There is a trend among some Canadian air carriers to augment their flight crew contingent on a seasonal basis with foreign pilots. Foreign pilots have been hired at Sunwing, CanJet and what was
Skyservice. In some cases, the foreign pilots fly the carriers’ Canadian-registered aircraft; in others, the Canadian carrier uses both foreign aircraft and crew. Foreign workers require a permit to work in Canada. Employers wishing to engage foreign workers can assist them in obtaining this permit by making an application to HRSDC for a labour market opinion, or an LMO. The guidelines for the foreign
worker program stipulate that eligible foreign workers are allowed to work in Canada for an authorized period if the employer can demonstrate that they are unable to find suitable Canadians or permanent residents to fill the jobs and that the entry of the workers will not have a negative impact on the Canadian labour market. The employers in these cases stipulate that the pilots must be type-rated, which is different than having a licence, on a certain model of aircraft. Rather than hire non-rated pilots and train them, the carrier applies to have foreign pilots fill the positions on a seasonal members basis. We are of the opinion that there is not currently a shortage of pilots in Canada. Rather than utilizing the labour market opinion to fill genuine personnel shortages, the program is being used to create economic advantages as the carriers can eliminate training costs and hire a pilot only seasonally.

:wink:

Sunwing succes is mosltly explain by the money imput of TUI in 2010, the synergie and the scale economy on hotels down south and the economy generated by increasing the size of a young company. I will not say anything on the aircraft dumping in the canadian market of short range aircraft that were used to fly to tunesia, egypt and greece by TUI form Europe.

Last year they sent 12 canadian pilots to work in Europe and then imported close to 200 foreign pilots in "reciprocity"