Sunwing/Canjet fleet and foreign pilots, Winter 2013-2014

[Major Cong]

Take a look at your skiing resorts.

[gonnabeapilot]

I really can't believe the people on here who thinks its completely ok of a Canadian company to use foreign labour, insides the boundaries of Canada, to be more cost effective against other Canadian companies that employ ... Canadians ... go figure. Your minds are really warped ...

Curious what you consider to be the difference between using foreign labour inside the boundaries of Canada and outsourcing to foreign labour?? In both cases, a company is denying a job to a Canadian in order to be more cost effective by looking towards the global labour market.... but I'm sure all the products in your house have a "Made in Canada" label on them that supports your ideology... the world is a global market place now and companies are forming cross boarder alliances to leverage that fact.... it is the new reality in every industry and every country. Why people seem to think that pilots are in a special category outside the new global economic reality leaves me scratching my head.

[Gilles Hudicourt]

I really can't believe the people on here who thinks its completely ok of a Canadian company to use foreign labour, insides the boundaries of Canada, to be more cost effective against other Canadian companies that employ ... Canadians ... go figure. Your minds are really warped ...

Curious what you consider to be the difference between using foreign labour inside the boundaries of Canada and outsourcing to foreign labour?? In both cases, a company is denying a job to a Canadian in order to be more cost effective by looking towards the global labour market.... but I'm sure all the products in your house have a "Made in Canada" label on them that supports your ideology... the world is a global market place now and companies are forming cross boarder alliances to leverage that fact.... it is the new reality in every industry and every country. Why people seem to think that pilots are in a special category outside the new global economic reality leaves me scratching my head.

The difference is the same as buying a car made in Mexico on one hand, or buying car made in Ontario, but in a plant with Mexican Temporary Foreign auto workers instead of Canadian auto workers; Mexican auto workers that claim they were hired through a Mexican outfit and that they already pay taxes in Mexico, so they don't have to pay taxes in Canada.

[gonnabeapilot]

The difference is the same as buying a car made in Mexico on one hand, or buying car made in Ontario, but in a plant with Mexican Temporary Foreign auto workers instead of Canadian auto workers; Mexican auto workers that claim they were hired through a Mexican outfit and that they already pay taxes in Mexico, so they don't have to pay taxes in Canada.

That misses the point. There are car companies that manufacture cars in Canada and employ Canadians to do so. So regardless of whether or not your car is built in a plant in Mexico by Mexicans or in a plant in Ontario by Mexican Temporary Foreign Workers paying taxes in Mexico, you have still chosen to support a company that has decided to make use of Foreign labour to gain a cost competitive edge against their Canadian competition.

When it comes to the Foreign pilot issue, I would argue that Air Canada and its use of the Star Alliance for code sharing has cost far more hypothetical Canadian jobs than Sunwing and Canjet's use of seasonal Foreign pilots. I would also point out that both Sunwing and Canjet have decided to use pilots from Europe where the salary structure is very similar to our own here in Canada. It is quite different than bringing in, or outsourcing to, Foreign labour that makes pennies on the dollar compared to their Canadian counterparts. In fact, taking that point one step further, I think people should check their closets because if you're wearing an item of clothing that says anything other than "made in Canada" chances are you have used your purchasing power to support a Canadian company that once used a rather strong Canadian textile industry to manufacture its clothes and has now decided to gain a cost competitive edge by taking the work out of Canada, putting large numbers of Canadian workers out on the street, so they can manufacture the item in a sweat shop in the developing world that is involved in who knows how many human right abuses.

If you want to fight Globalisation, I would suggest starting in your closets at home. I would argue that will have a much bigger impact on the Canadian work force and quality of life in our Country than a couple hundred well paid European pilots being used to help employ a couple hundred Canadian pilots year round and resulting in 2
30 other well paid Canadian pilots being temporarily laid off from Air Transat.

[Gilles Hudicourt]

Junior Travel Service First officers earn about 1200 Euros per month. That's the equivalent of $21000 per year. Which is why they are so eager to do overtime when in Canada (which conflicts with the 900 hours of flight time their EU license allows)

Do not confuse free movement of goods, with free movement of labour. And even goods do not travel completely free of duty. European built cars pay 6.1 per cent import duty while European spare parts pays 10% duty.

NAFTA for example, allows goods made in Canada, the US and Mexico, to travel freely between these countries free of duty. It also allows NAFTA companies to bid in other NAFTA countries on certain services. In the aviation field, NAFTA only presently allows services under Part 702. Not 703, 704, or 705.

There are no provision however for labour to cross borders freely. That is why we have visas, landed immigrants status, work permits and the sorts. Inside the EU, where this has been abolished, there are no longer work permit requirement from one member country to another. But Canada is nor yet part of the EU and NAFTA does not allow US and Mexican pilots to come and work in Canada without and work permit issued by CIC.

So I think you are confusing things when you try to equate the contents of my closet with Sunwing's foreign pilots in Canada.

[thx1138]

Doesn't Canjet use foreign pilots? I just heard Air Transat is trying to get TravelService pilots for next winter. Is any of this true?

[Rogerdodger2]

It is true. From a very high up inside source. There will be TravelService pilots in Transat flight decks next winter. Let's see if Gilles keeps up his fight then...

[WetJet]

It is true. From a very high up inside source. There will be TravelService pilots in Transat flight decks next winter. Let's see if Gilles keeps up his fight then...

How about this Rogerdoger2. If Transat brings in foreign pilots and Gilles does keep up the fight, you have to shut your Christmas Cake hole. Forever! Please!

Merry Christmas!

[Rogerdodger2]

LOL! Another Transat pilot no doubt.

[Gilles Hudicourt]

Air Transat KNOWS that flying Canadian aircraft under part VII with an FLVC is illegal. They will never risk putting passengers in a Canadian aircraft flown by a pilot with an FLVC because they know that should something happen, the shit will hit the fan.

So if Air Transat WERE to ever use foreign pilots at the controls of its Canadian registered aircraft, these foreign pilots, for starters, will all have bona fide Canadian pilot licences, issued legally. Not one that came out of a Cracker Jack box.

[gomental]

Gilles

You seem to think that all pilots except canadian licensed ones are imcompetent....... Where did you get yours. ?
Funny how you didn't deny the foreigns pilots at AT.

[Dick]

I was under the impression that this was about protecting Canadian jobs, not about how foreign pilots were licensed while in Canada. Apparently if Transat uses foreign pilots with Canadian licenses, that makes it ok. As opposed to the competition who uses foreign pilots who have passed a Canadian PPC administered by an approved check pilot, then gets issued a "Cracker Jack" license as Gilles has so eloquently put it.

[Rogerdodger2]

We'll put Dick. I think most people on this forum are starting to see Gilles REAL motivation. It's not to save Canadian jobs. It's to save Transat and in doing so save his own job.

[TG]

I really can't believe the people on here who thinks its completely ok of a Canadian company to use foreign labour, insides the boundaries of Canada, to be more cost effective against other Canadian companies that employ ... Canadians ... go figure. Your minds are really warped ...

I second that.

Some of you here are just advocating or justifying what happened to the Merchant Navy and their 'Flag of convenience' thing a few decades ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_convenience
Just a little quotation out of all this mess:

The International Transport Workers' Federation goes further, stating that flags of convenience "provide a means of avoiding labour regulation in the country of ownership, and become a vehicle for paying low wages and forcing long hours of work and unsafe working conditions.
--
in its 2009 Report on Maritime Trade, states that shipowners often register their ships under a foreign flag in order to employ "seafarers from developing countries with lower wages."

In a less drastic way (for now) this is where aviation is heading and I just don't understand how anyone could be against someone fighting it unless you have something to gain out of it.
You will have to tell me what is it because it totally escape me!
The 'couple hundred well paid European pilots being used to help employ a couple hundred Canadian pilots year round' is what I would call in French faire entrer le loup dans la bergerie.



Disclaimer:

-http://translate.google.com/
-I am not with Air transat-->Doesn't matters anyway!
-I know Wikipedia is not the best place to give as reference-->Gives a good idea though...
-I am not calling European countries 'developing countries'-->Also, you can bet that one day, if nothing is done they will figure out a way to bump Europeans and source ultra cheap labour in developing countries as well (talking about Sunwing's type of scheme thing)
-I say good for Gilles to save his own job, even better if it imply to save more jobs.
-Happy new year

[Sunwing738]

Does anyone have any information about WG's Wet-Lease of a Dynamic Airways 767-200 that was supposed to be based out on the West Coast as per this article posted in an earlier thread by Mr. Hudicourt?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qj9t4usnecehq ... A-2013.pdf

Seems the aircraft was supposed to arrive Dec 16th and operate flights from YVR & YEG to PUJ, LIR and MBJ. So far I've heard nothing, has the agreement fallen through or was it stopped by the CTA?

[Gilles Hudicourt]

Sunwing initially intended to wet lease 6 foreign aircraft, 5 737s and 1 767. When they realized that the CTA would not approuve 6 but only 5, they withdrew their application for the 767.

Regardless, the CTA should have only approuved 2 wet leases, not 5. The new wet lease policy states that a company is allowed to wet lease 20% of its fleet on its OC "at the time of application". Sunwing applied for 5 aircraft which represented 20% of the fleet it would have at a later date, not at the time they applied (they only had 12 aircraft then), and for reasons no one can understand, the CTA allowed it.

They now have 27 aircraft. 20% of 27 is 5.4. Sunwing was expecting the CTA to round up 5.4 to the higher integer which would have given 6, thus the 767, but the CTA argued that they would round up only after .5 or more. This was the rationale they provided for not allowing 6.

[Sunwing738]

Thanks for the insight Gilles,

On a side note with the whole wet-leasing no more then 20% of the number of aircraft in your fleet at the time of application. Canjet has 13 aircraft this winter,

5 registered to C6's OC,
Another 3 were re-registered with Canadian registrations C-GLBG, GVAQ (Jetairfly) and C-GDGZ (TUIfly).
& another 5 kept their current registrations F-GZHA, GZHB and PH-HZL (Transavia) and D-ATUG & ATUL (TUIfly).

Now my knowledge of wet/dry leases is limited but wouldn't the main indicator between the two be an A/C registration change? As far as I know, a dry lease would have the aircraft reg changed to the country the carrier operates from until the lease is up and the aircraft is re-registered and sent back to its original owner. That obviously can't be the case for C6. They would only be allowed 1 wet-lease if they applied for it with the 5 a/c on their OC, or 1.6 (2) if they did what WG did and applied taking into account their dry-leases. So have they violated the CTA's rules as well?

I happened to come across this photo of D-ATUG with an "Operated by TUIfly" sticker on the nose.

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/640x480q90/34/bb1c.jpg

I'm assuming that both the TUI birds are wet-leases which indicates that C6 applied for the wet-leases the same way WG did, effectively cheating the system. However that is speculation that both ATUG and ATUL are wet-leases.

Which leaves the question of the Transavia birds? Why are they still registered to Transavia & Transavia France if they are in-fact dry-leases?

[Gilles Hudicourt]

Some of the Canjet foreign registered aircraft are in fact dry leases, who are maintained on foreign registry, as allowed by CAR 203, but they appear on the Canjet OC, which wet leases do not. Only 2 of the Canjet foreign registered aircraft are wet leases.

Still, under the new wet lease policy, Canjet should have been allowed to have just one wet-lease, but the CTA approved 2.

[Sunwing738]

Thanks, I figured that was the case. Seems odd the Transavia birds remain in their respective registrations while on the Canjet OC, Im sure it happens more often then I know, but this is the first time I've heard of this happening in Canada. Thanks for clearing things up!

Interesting though how both airlines managed to cheat the system. Hopefully the CTA toughens up on their policies and enforces them a lot better in the future.

[Gilles Hudicourt]

Sunwing used to do CAR 203 dry leases also but has not done it the last two or three winters. The last time they did it, they had kept about 5 UK registered aircraft. The problem with that is the Canadian pilots needs FLV from the country of registry to fly these aircraft in Canada but it allows the airline to avoid the cost and trouble of de-registering and re-registering the aircraft. There are also limits, under CAR 203, on the number of aircraft of an airlines' fleet that one can do that with.