CBC Article on New Transport Canada Rules

[Go Guns]

My question is, what new Transport Canada rule are they referring to?

Whitehorse airport affected by new landing rules
CBC News

Travellers flying to and from Whitehorse's Erik Nielsen International Airport could face more flight interruptions this winter because of new federal transport regulations.

Transport Canada raised its reduced-visibility landing requirements for aircraft this fall, making it tougher to fly into Whitehorse and other cities in windy and overcast weather conditions.

Nav Canada, the private company that provides air traffic control and air navigation services in Canada, says the regulations limit airport accessibility under those weather conditions.

"It has to do with cloud ceiling and visibility," Ron Singer, a spokesman for NAV Canada, told CBC News on Wednesday.

"Before, they were about 600 feet ceiling and about … 1¾ miles visibility, and now they've been raised to over 1,300 feet and three miles."

The new rules have created a challenge for Air North and Air Canada Jazz, the two commercial airlines that fly in and out of Whitehorse, according to officials.

"As we move into winter, the circumstances where you've got a low ceiling, strong winds from the south and slippery runway conditions all come together," Air North president Joe Sparling said.

"They may well make it impossible to get in under certain conditions, and that would be the case for both airlines."

Singer said other Canadian airports in mountainous areas — like Kamloops, Kelowna and Terrace, B.C. — are in similar situations as Whitehorse.

Nav Canada and Transport Canada are reviewing the regulations, but Singer said no changes would happen before March at the earliest.

"We are working as expeditiously as possible on designing a new approach that will lower the limits back to where they were or better," he said.

Air Canada Jazz cancelled some of its flights between Whitehorse and Vancouver earlier this week because of windy conditions.



Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/north/story/20 ... z16LFCQFTI

[twinpratts]

Did they recently decomission a specific approach, or are they talking LVOP/RVOP?

[airportguy]

sounds like rvop to me.

[sakism]

"Before, they were about 600 feet ceiling and about … 1¾ miles visibility, and now they've been raised to over 1,300 feet and three miles."

Doesn't sound anything like RVOP to me. Mention of specific wind direction would suggest the decommisioning of an approach.

[Pourdu_fun]

The NDB as been decommisioned since 2-3 weeks.

Pourdu

[railker]

This isn't the first time this issue has come up either. A few years ago I was a coop student working with a northern airline, and was tasked with putting weather data together on a major northern airport because TC changed the RVR requirements for landings, and the company was rightly concerned it was going to severely impact operations. Looked at 7 years of METAR history and looked at how much a difference it would have made if those RVR requirements were in place over those seven years, and it made quite a difference -- no doubt, it's the same for the airlines that fly up North now if this is the same line of thought, looking at canceled flights more often now, and that means more money out of pocket if they're going to pay for dozens of passengers to be put up in hotels if the weather isn't about to pass and let flights in ...

[bezerker]

The new approaches suck. Apparently the old ones unfortunately didn't meet ICAO standards (the missed approaches I believe, which is why all the approaches to runway 13R now have much higher minimums.

Old LOC BC



New LOC BC



Although you can still get lower than the original back course (depending on category) if you choose to be a man and circle off the ILS.

[Commonwealth]

I just love how it is almost 2011 and a circling approach is now the preferred method for landing on 13R in YXY. For all the technology available, some days we are moving in the opposite direction. Common sense is not so common I guess.

CW

[mbav8r]

Except for the fact, at Jazz our circling limits for the RJ are 1000' and 3nm(VFR), in other words No circling unless VFR.

[ragbagflyer]

Wow, this has to be frustrating! So it didn't meet ICAO standards? Why couldn't they just leave it unchanged until a suitable alternative was found that kept the same minimums? This seems like a good way to encourage taking a higher tailwind on the ILS. What's the tailwind limit specified by Jazz's SOPs?

There must be an anti-Jazz conspiracy at work! *sarcasm*

[mbav8r]

10 kts

[swordfish]

The Whitehorse approaches are only the tip of the iceberg.

All over the NWT, GNSS approaches are "unavailable" without any reasonable explanation, and other headaches.

CIP: Inuvik - on the ILS approach, you can only descend to 202' AGL now, rather than 200'...hello.... ??? (btw, lamerz...it's not the magnitude of the difference I scorn; it's the absurdity)

Deline: GNSS not authorized (and may be subject to being removed completely, according to NavCanada) because a fix called BOMOP has been "redefined" - again without reason. BOMOP doesn't really have a function according to the profile diagram, but in the GPS, it's the MAP. Unless I miss my guess, it was originally defined by the approach preceeding it.

Things we have been doing safely ever since GNSS approaches overlaid conventional approaches are suddenly revoked. It begs the question of what's wrong with the conventional approach.

Talking to NavCanada the other day, I was told the Deline GNSS approach is "no longer criteria-compliant". No explanation of what that meant specifically (she refused to say why, offering only the redundant "blow-me" bureaucratese jive). "Of course, you can always conduct the conventional approach", she said. "You just can't use the GNSS approach."

So we go to Deline, and the NDB drops off the air. Ok, so you're holding Good Hope as your alternate & needing to land on 06, and the VOR goes down. What next, over...?

[200Above]

back to the ol' mexican ILS?

what... who said that?

[railker]

I actually just found the CD of data I got for Iqaluit and the issue back in 2007 that came up with TC raising the RVR requirements for airports and how it affected an airline's operations. Int his case, they were raising the minimum RVR from 1,200FT to 3,000FT. I looked at 7 years' of METAR history at that airport, took all the RVR events and did lots of whatnotish, and determined how many of those 'hours' of reports would've given an aircraft clearance to go in under old rules, and then how many more flights would be denied if the new rules had been in place.

In winter, the increase hit as high as 600%, yearly average of over 350% increase (600+ flights denied) -- and that's using the maximum variables in variable-RVR reports, not the minimum variable which kicked those numbers up to over 430% increase (700+ flights).

But again, it comes down to Airlines wanting to run their operations and keep costs down versus. safety factor in such weather conditions. Hope I'm not resurrecting a dead topic, just found my CD and wanted to share some numbers.