Montreal CTV News: Air Transat could turn to foreign pilots

[Gilles Hudicourt]

Sorry Gilles but is this about planes or pilots?

So there is no relation between planes and pilots ? 1 aircraft = 12 to 14 pilots. Do the math.

[ea306]

Your incorrect Gilles. Sunwing at the beginning was all Canadian. We sent pilots to work in the UK, they sent none here (one yr we might have had 3 XL pilots come here).

Really ?

Sunwing has been making use of temporary foreign aircraft and crews since the winter 2006-2007.

In 2006 they brought in 2 aircraft C-GDBX and C-GLWB from EuroCypria
In 2007, they brought in 3 aircraft, C-FEAG from XL Airways, and 2 from EuroCypria, C-GDBX and C-GLBW
In 2008, they brought in 8 aircraft, C-FXLD from XL Germany, C-GDBX and C-GLBW from Eurocypria, and C-GHZC, C-GKZA, PH-HZE, PH-HZK and PH-HZL from Transavia.
In 2009, they brought in 4 aircraft, C-FYLD from XL Germany, C-GDBX and C-GLBW from EuroCypria and SE-RHS from Viking.
In 2010, they brought in 6 aircraft, all from Thomson : C-FRZG, C-FRZJ, C-FRZB, C-FDZD, C-FDZE and C-FDZF.
In 2011, the explosion, they brought in 18 aircraft. I will spare you the registrations.
This year, they are bringing in 21 aircraft.

Since it was founded, Sunwing imported a grand total of 62 temporary aircraft and crew.

Whipline is correct as far as I know. Yes there were short term leased aircraft which you listed....however they did not come with pilots. We provided our own.

And yes as Whipline states, we as a pilot group were not too happy with the importation of Foreign Pilots over at Canjet back then. Many a conversation in the flight deck was on the topic of: "How is this possible".

As for Canadian Jobs, the vast majority of the Sunwing seniority list will be doing time in Europe....including dozens of FOs that are not even yet on line from this latest mass hiring...anywhere from two to five and almost six months.

We have heard the arguments of FLVC versus wet leases... (Which is 7 this summer by the way.) .... But the irrefutable fact is that there are a LOT of Canadian Pilots going to work in Europe this summer. These are not small paying cheap labour jobs either. I am sure it raises the odd eyebrow amongst the Euro pilot population that may not be so well informed.

I know no one will change your view on the FLVC versus Wet Lease...but I suggest taking a breath and have a listen at what Whipline is saying. Sunwing did take two years to follow Canjet's lead on the adopting the Foreign Pilot usage and managed to capitalize on it quite profitably I might add. As your pilot group maybe concerned of career growth stagnation as Air Transat adopts this business model, The Sunwing Pilot group suffered with that also for a time. This is certainly not the case today. Who knows Gilles, perhaps AT will see profits again and your pilot group might see more hiring down the road once AT is restored to financial good health.

But then again maybe the beast is poisoned as you say...and will die a sudden death...and we can see the legacy of the extinct bankrupt companies continue to join that list. I gather that there are some here that will like to see a few more companies on that list (you have never said that...so don't jump on me for repeating what others on here have posted). Seems hypocritical to have that view to me.

[Gilles Hudicourt]

Whipline is correct as far as I know. Yes there were short term leased aircraft which you listed....however they did not come with pilots. We provided our own.

And yes as Whipline states, we as a pilot group were not too happy with the importation of Foreign Pilots over at Canjet back then. Many a conversation in the flight deck was on the topic of: "How is this possible".

As for Canadian Jobs, the vast majority of the Sunwing seniority list will be doing time in Europe....including dozens of FOs that are not even yet on line from this latest mass hiring...anywhere from two to five and almost six months.

We have heard the arguments of FLVC versus wet leases... (Which is 7 this summer by the way.) .... But the irrefutable fact is that there are a LOT of Canadian Pilots going to work in Europe this summer. These are not small paying cheap labour jobs either. I am sure it raises the odd eyebrow amongst the Euro pilot population that may not be so well informed.

I know no one will change your view on the FLVC versus Wet Lease...but I suggest taking a breath and have a listen at what Whipline is saying. Sunwing did take two years to follow Canjet's lead on the adopting the Foreign Pilot usage and managed to capitalize on it quite profitably I might add. As your pilot group maybe concerned of career growth stagnation as Air Transat adopts this business model, The Sunwing Pilot group suffered with that also for a time. This is certainly not the case today. Who knows Gilles, perhaps AT will see profits again and your pilot group might see more hiring down the road once AT is restored to financial good health.

But then again maybe the beast is poisoned as you say...and will die a sudden death...and we can see the legacy of the extinct bankrupt companies continue to join that list. I gather that there are some here that will like to see a few more companies on that list (you have never said that...so don't jump on me for repeating what others on here have posted). Seems hypocritical to have that view to me.

Perhaps some of your earlier short term dry leases had no foreign pilots, I don't really know, but I know you've had foreign pilots for several years. Perhaps yours came in under what you think is "reciprocity" and that you were shocked that Canjet used LMOs (and maybe they were the first to use that method I don't know). But in my book, your "reciprocity" is not better than LMOs.
By the way, this winter, 119 of your foreign pilots came under LMO's (non reciprocity), about 50 others came under wet-Leases (non reciprocity) and only the balance came under the so-called "reciprocity".

Some of you claim that the fact that you send aircraft on wet-leases to Europe provides "work" for Canadian overseas. If you want to call that method "reciprocity", and then I can agree with it, but here is how:

You are sending 7 aircraft to Europe for 6 months this summer which will provide work for say 98 Canadian pilots (7 x 14)
I will have no trouble with seeing that in exchange you be allowed to bring in 7 foreign aircraft and crews (98 pilots) as "reciprocity".
That would be fair and reasonable. But I suspect Sunwing has no intention to only import 7 aircraft and crew next winter.

[ea306]

I suspect you are correct on that one.

[whipline]

What does importing aircraft have to do with anything? The first 2 aircraft were from XL and were run by kelowna flghtcraft. They were ftae and ftah. Skyervice ran a 57 for us. The eurocypria planes were dirt cheap and power by the hour? They were all crewed by Canadians. We didn't follow suit until your bosses started it. Now they're upset and going to do what we do? They've done it and continue to do it each year. Nothing new there.

As I said hopefully you've stopped it. Good luck finding reciprocal agreements.

[Gilles Hudicourt]

Good luck finding reciprocal agreements.

In which language must I write it ?

EASA no longer allows reciprocal agreements, the CARs never have.

[whipline]

Really? Oddly enough we keep going back and forth to Europe You have of course figured out the CARS/EASA are not static, they can and do amend them? Why just the other day we had a huge burden lifted by the UK CAA..but thats another story I won't bore you with.

Sorry, maybe try Creole?

[Gilles Hudicourt]

Wet-Lease swapping is what you will be doing. Your seven wet-leases swapped against 7 Europe Wet-lease coming to Canada.

Anything more is NOT reciprocity.

[Jean-Luc Monette]

Sorry, maybe try Creole?

If that's the most intelligent comment you can come up with behind your pseudo, I think you should quit posting on this issue...

[Gilles Hudicourt]

Here is a 2003 TSB incident report about a Skyservice aircraft that ran off the runway in Windsor Ontario because the F/O did not know how to operate an ARCAL. Guess who was in the right seat ? A Foreign pilot using an illegal FLVC.

http://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-repor ... 3o0034.pdf

The first officer was an employee of My Travel Airways Ltd., United Kingdom (UK) and was flying for Skyservice Airlines for the winter season as part of a crew sharing arrangement between Skyservice and My Travel

Now here is a May 03 2013 CADORS

Date Entered:2013-05-03
Narrative:
A Sunwing Airlines Boeing 737-800 (SWG9322), from Val-d’Or (CYVO) to Sept-Îles (CYZV), took off without runway lights, which were not turned on by the crew even though the ARCAL system was working properly.
O.P.I.:Commercial & Business Aviation Further Action Required:Yes

I wonder who was flying this one ? Could it be that there are Canadians who do not know how to work an ARCAL ? Maybe. But I highly doubt it.

[RogerCheckCopy]

I recommend we ban Air France from flying to Canada. They had a runway excursion in YYZ and from what I understand both pilots were French!!

[Gilles Hudicourt]

All I'm saying is there was a reason lawmakers wrote that FLVCs were never meant to be used for flying revenue flights under Sub-Parts 703, 704 and 705 in Canada. And the above incident illustrates it.

About the limited duration and purposes for which an FLVC may be issued:

http://www.gazette.gc.ca/archives/p2/20 ... 9-eng.html

CAR 401.07 (Validation of Foreign Licences)

The amendment to CAR 401.07 (Validation of Foreign Licences) prohibits a permanent resident of Canada from applying for a foreign licence validation certificate. This restriction supports the limited duration and use to which such a certificate can be put. The protection of the safety of the Canadian aviation system from the effect of possibly less rigorous standards applied in pilot licensing elsewhere, which could dilute the worth of a Canadian document if foreign licences were validated in Canada without limit or restriction, will be maintained. No significant benefit-cost consequences are expected from this amendment.

[Fanblade]

http://www.otc-cta.gc.ca/eng/ruling/187-a-2013

Looks like Canadian 737 pilots.

[ea306]

Enerjet.

[Dh8Classic]

Here is a 2003 TSB incident report about a Skyservice aircraft that ran off the runway in Windsor Ontario because the F/O did not know how to operate an ARCAL. Guess who was in the right seat ? A Foreign pilot using an illegal FLVC.

http://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-repor ... 3o0034.pdf

The first officer was an employee of My Travel Airways Ltd., United Kingdom (UK) and was flying for Skyservice Airlines for the winter season as part of a crew sharing arrangement between Skyservice and My Travel

Now here is a May 03 2013 CADORS

Date Entered:2013-05-03
Narrative:
A Sunwing Airlines Boeing 737-800 (SWG9322), from Val-d’Or (CYVO) to Sept-Îles (CYZV), took off without runway lights, which were not turned on by the crew even though the ARCAL system was working properly.
O.P.I.:Commercial & Business Aviation Further Action Required:Yes

I wonder who was flying this one ? Could it be that there are Canadians who do not know how to work an ARCAL ? Maybe. But I highly doubt it.

Now that Gilles has decided to start posting incidents and accidents in his arguments, perhaps in some feeble attempt to scare pax away from Sunwing, I guess we better provide a couple of links here as well.

These guys on an A-310 rotated 44 knots above Vr on and RVR 1800 departure, started their turn at 40 feet, were climbing so fast at their level off altitude that they trimmed fully nosedown without realizing it and put themselves into a dive, ended up below 1500 feet overspeeding at 345 knots, almost 7° nose down, had all kinds of EGPWS alerts sounding and recovered below 1,000 AGL. Accidental transmissions to ATC during this episode showed they did not know what was going on, according to the report. One pilot was an instructor.

http://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-repor ... 8q0051.asp

These guys were made aware a fuel imbalance over 3 tons and then noticed within minutes that they had a sudden shortage of total fuel at a rapidly increasing rate yet pumped pumped the rest of their fuel from the unaffected side overboard. By chance they were not cleared as filed but on a more southerly route and were able to glide to the only real landing spot for thousands of miles.

http://www.fss.aero/accident-reports/dv ... -24-PT.pdf

Some years ago, some guys in an L-1011 over in Europe got into such bad hail, I'm not sure the plane ever flew again.

Maybe Gilles, you should just not take this line of argument.

[ea306]

Oh boy.....

Maybe we can put a stop to this thread drift. No point in waving red flags in each other's faces. What do ya say fellas? In the interest of chivalry?

Topic: Air Transat could turn to foreign pilots

Cheers
ea306

[Dh8Classic]

Oh boy.....

Maybe we can put a stop to this thread drift. No point in waving red flags in each other's faces. What do ya say fellas? In the interest of chivalry?

Topic: Air Transat could turn to foreign pilots

Cheers
ea306

Seems fine by me. This line of argument should never have started in the first place. I am ready to delete my previous post once I see that the ones it is in response to is deleted. Or maybe the mod will do it for us.

[AGA-Présient]

Noticed in a Pink Floyd song: "Together we stand, divided we fall..." Let's all work together... i'm pretty sure we all have the same goal in giving way to our fellow canadian pilots, am i wrong??