Missinippi Airways' AOC suspended - 22 Oct 2011

[The Old Fogducker]

No such designation as "Essential Service" Doc.

If an entity holds an AOC, they are subject to having it "popped" if the responsible people fail to meet the required standards. That goes for everything from Air Canada down to a single airplane mom and pop fly out fishing lodge operator. If TC issued it, TC can take it back for cause.

In the days when I was still trying to climb the bottom of the greasy pole of Canadian Aviation, all it took to avoid an AOC suspension was a quick call by the operator to his MP, and within an hour the inspection team would receive a call from Ottawa telling them to pack up and head for home.

The Dubin Inquiry Into Aviation Safety went a long way toward putting an end to that way of doing business. One of the companies in the Dubin Report was infamous for doing that, and I have first-hand observational experience. Having quaffed a few beers with now elderly and long retired operational Air Carrier Inspectors who were yanked off the property when they were in the middle of finding evidence of serious wrong-doing, its disappointing to have to say its true.

So could Wasaya get suspended? Of course.

However, AOC "Notice of Suspension" forms are not whipped out of the reqgional office with the speed of a Las Vegas Blackjack dealer.

The first step following or during an inspection is almost always the generation of a list of deficiencies with a time period for rectification ... generally 30 days, but could be as short as seven days, or in extreme examples of problems found, it could be an immediate suspension based on an immediate threat to aviation safety ... such as falsified pilot training records, aircraft flown beyond inspection intervals, ADs not complied with, unqualified staff that doesn't meet the experience or licence requirements, as a few examples.

The next step is development of a company Corrective Action Plan (CAP) and a subsequent follow up inspection to ensure the company has actually accomplished what they said they would do in the accepted CAPs ... if not, then its "Pop Goes The Weasel" for the AOC because the people doing the promising of things in the CAPs are either lying buggers that can't be trusted for a microsecond, or are incompetant, or aren't being given sufficient resources to work with to do the job that was promised..... or a combination of all three.

Here's a little video that shows how the system works .... the monkey is Transport Canada .... the weasel is .... well, the weasel is the weasel that holds an AOC and is in non-compliance, then lies about what he's going to do to fix things up ...

http://youtu.be/ShX8AUnuhPA

Foggy, wearing my aviation consultant hat .... no charge for that education

edited to correct a typo

[High and Behind]

I'm not going to derail the thread any more than I already have with my interpretation of the Canadian electoral system. Oldandcold has done it for me.

Back to topic

[SRV]

we are 550 billion in the ditch too and 9.3 million baby boomers eligable for retirement in the next 15 yrs with only 6 million taxpayer to replace them!! guess what unless we too go on a hard diet of less is more for a 10 yrs before the last boomers exit stage left . kids will be royally screwed .

5.5 billion in the hole 'cuz the neocons gave it their corporate bros who pretend they will save the world by employing everyone (good luck), meanwhile your pension plan goes to repay the debt and the unions are blamed for the cost of living being out of control...lovely system ...anyhoo, here is the latest news from the braintrust...

http://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/civilaviation/o ... 4-1369.htm

http://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/civilaviation/o ... 5-1368.htm

http://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/civilaviation/o ... 6-1381.htm

[The Old Fogducker]

I guess this is an end to any serious discussion regarding the Missinippi AOC suspension thread.

[Doc]

No such designation as "Essential Service" Doc.
i

Again, just using Wasaya as an example. This company's employees are forbidden from taking strike action(even though there are within CALPA) do the the fact they are designated an "essential service". So, how would TC go about circumventing this designation? I'm just curious, and for once not trying to stir up shit. To me, suspending an "essential service" would be like suspending the operating certificate of the OPP???? Please explain this to me. I'm thinking a bunch of Wasaya pilots would be pretty interested in the answer as well?

[The Old Fogducker]

Doc:

"Essential Service" is not a concept in TC wth respect to an AOC Doc. For labour contract service, a company may have beenable to write that term into a contract and thereby be designated as an essential service for the purposes of labour negotiations. However, as a concept, that is generally only applicable to government entities IE designating a certain percentage of nurses at a hospital so that if they withdraw services in support of contract negotiations, so patients aren't dying over a 3% wage increase.It can also be designated as such by an act of Parliament such as was done in the case of Air Canada's FAs which set them to binding arbitration ... sort of the idea of "Too big to allow them to fail."

Your question about the concept of suspending the AOC of the OPP isn't at all out of the question. In actuality, if a problem were found which required correction because there was a clear falling below the requirements of the regs, generally the management of such entities such as the RCMP Air Division, OPP, various Provincial Air Services like the forestry section of Ontario, provincial air ambulance services, etc will fix a problem immediately rather than engaging "piss up a rope" style arguments with Transport when the AOC is on the line.

For example, lets say that a Province holds an AOC under CAR 703 to operate a King Air 350 to move people and goods in support of fire suppression operations which are billed to some other section of the government for cost recovery, and as such fall under the pilot training requirements of CASS 723.98 (10) which very specifically lays out the minimum excersizes which must be covered in an aircraft based training program. If, during a PVI .... or spot inspection .... the training records show that while the minimum flight time had been flown .... (about 5 hours is typical COM minimum for a turbine powered presurized aircraft) ... but only about 1/3rd of the required items from the CASS had been covered, the pilot isn't qualified. Here's a link to the reference .... http://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/civilaviation/r ... tm#723a_98 scroll down to (10) for the list of mandatory items.

Upon discovering this insufficiency, the pilot is immediately removed from the line and grounded until the missing items are completed. Somebody else on staff will do the flying until Biggles gets the required items flown off. If nobody on staff has all the required items on their training files ... well, now its a case of "Houston, we have a problem." Then all of the pilots are grounded and outside expertise has to be drawn in to act as "seed" to be the qualified training pilot to train at least one guy who then becomes the trainer for everyone else on staff.

While "Bison Joe Schmoe Airline and Pizza Delivery Company" may get their back up and argue about "Tin horn government jerks" and make a huge deal out out of the finding, pledging to taking the grounding "to the highest court in the land," the flight dept at any reasonable company will immediately get down to work and train that pilot with the missing exercises and all who follow, in accordance with the requirements of the CASS and be done with it.

Failure to do so, will mean an AOC suspension for unqualified staff, regardless of the political profile of the company. There have been some pretty high profile AOCs suspended for short periods, but are reinstated within a couple of days because the "immediate threat" problems have been fixed while some other operator subs the flying for the suspended one and a couple of days later are back flying again as if nothing happened. Behind the scenes though ... a whole lot is happening.

In my example of "Joe Schmoe" getting his back up and puffing out his tail while doing a bunch of hissing and spitting, well, he will have talked himself into a longer term suspension because he has chosen a route which didn't direct the total capabilities of the operation to addressing and fixing the problem of a blatant insufficiency.

Bottom line of this Doc ... there is no such thing as "essential service" in the CARs or the CASS, or the Aeronautics Act ... just check the definitions sections of each of those documents, and you'll come up bare. It is possible that the term was worked into your labour contract between the employer and CALPA as a condition of CALPA certification, or a deal on wages, or who knows what ... in other words, they gave up the right to strike in exchange for something that the negotiators thought was a worthwhile consideration.

The Old Fogducker .... again Doc, no charge for the consultation, generally my clients would have paid about $500 to learn that info. I'd better stop posting real information here, I'm doing myself out of business

[Doc]

Old Fog....thanks for that. Cheers