cncpc wrote:I don't think the "College" did any of the aviation colleges any favors by openly identifying them as places where this type of radicalism, if that's the word, or stupidity, if that's another option, could flourish.
Graduates from these programs have a tough enough time getting a seat with a good segment of the industry looking to hire low timers.
If employers decide to filter out any applicant who may have had anything to do with the "College" idea, or who may be a stalking horse within their own pilot ranks, openly identifying these institutions as potential breeding grounds was a very bad idea.
Aviation college graduates already have a strike against them, not necessarily rightly so, but this idea that the colleges is where the votes for a College will come from is going to seriously reduce their first employment chances.
I think that Coastal Pacific, Confederation, Seneca, and all the rest may rue the day they allowed their names to be associated with this contentious idea.
The idea of pilots coming together and forming an organization to run our own profession is actually not that radical of an idea. This is part of a country-wide trend where members of other professions have come together and set up their own organizations to run their professions. The most recent I was told of were environmental biologists and social workers.
Once upon a time, SMS was considered to be a dangerous and radical experiment. The idea of not punishing people for their mistakes was unheard of. The logic of the day was that if people made mistakes clearly they were bad people and should have their money taken away from them in the form of a fine. But then Human Factors experts like James Reason (who authored the Swiss Cheese model of accident causation), Sidney Dekker (a Swedish professor) and Key Dismukes (NASA researcher) came along and said this was totally unfair to the operator (pilot). If the operator made mistakes there were probably many other reasons why they made mistakes. Pilots generally have too deep a level of care for their passengers and co-workers to simply label them as bad people. So these Human Factors (HF) experts suggested a non-punishment reporting system where errors could be shared and then new procedures could be made to prevent these errors from happening. These experts said that by punishing people who made mistakes while trying to do their jobs to the best of their abilities, it motivated people to lie and hide their mistakes. When they hid their mistakes, that led to other people behind them falling into the same traps. A non-punishment reporting system would show everyone what the mistakes were so they did not make those same mistakes themselves.
So based on this expert advice, Transport Canada took the “radical” step of trying out SMS in Canada and not punishing pilots for their errors; much to the skepticism of some regulators around the world. The introduction of SMS was an admission that in order to improve aviation safety in Canada, we might have to “think outside the box” and try unconventional methods in order to reduce the accident rate. We tend to bash Transport Canada, but Transport Canada is actually seen as an innovative organization on the world stage. When I have attended accident investigation courses I met accident investigators from EADS (Airbus’s parent), Saab in Sweden, Sikorsky Helicopters, and many other Americans. One comment I heard consistently over and over was “Are you from Canada? I have a great deal of respect for Canada. Introducing SMS was a great idea. I wish we had it in our country.”
So what the College of Pilots wants to do is approach Transport Canada and say, if you were innovative enough to introduce a non-punishment reporting system to advance aviation safety, will you take it one step further and let pilots run our own profession? The College of Pilots feels that our profession is now mature enough that we can take over running it ourselves. We have some very effective accident prevention tools such as CRM and SMS. By running our profession ourselves, it would free up resources in Transport Canada to target sources of greater concern within their area of responsibility. The College of Pilots feels we can run our profession in a more streamlined manner. Let’s face it - our technology changes on a monthly basis, while our profession is not nearly as adaptable in a timely manner. NAV Canada is introducing ADS-B to parts of Hudson Bay as opposed to conventional radar installations. What do pilots need to know about it to safely operate in this airspace? The College of Pilots can keep our members up to date on technology changes before they have to find out the hard way.
As for graduates from these venues having a tough time getting their first job, I know exactly what you are talking about because I was one of them. The post-September 11, 2001 job market was brutal. I spent 3.5 years doing every job other than flying in order to get a right-seat Navajo job. That employer rewarded managers who were verbally abusive to the ramp staff, aircraft were overloaded on a routine basis, and who knows how many times minimums were busted in the name of customer service. To this day, I’m still baffled as to why this has to be part of the piloting profession. As a way to get over it, I found myself bitching constantly about my bad experiences starting out in aviation. Then finally someone got tired of me and told me they didn’t want to hear it anymore and why don’t I get off my rear end and do something about it? It was good advice, and when I looked around at all the ideas to improve our profession, the one that I think stands the most chance of being successful and effective is a College of Pilots. So that’s why I’m here and going on this cross-country tour with my team, to see if other pilots agree.
As for employers not approving of the work we are doing, I do not think employers have a reason to be concerned. We are not going to enter the wages arena; that will remain a union function for unionized pilots and an individual pilot’s function if they are non-unionized. I think in fact the College of Pilots will actually help employers. There are instances of established employers with high safety standards facing new competitors who bust regulations in order to gain new customers. The College of Pilots would teach new pilots effective ways to deal with those sources that want them to bust regulations in the name of customer service. Businesses with high safety standards and who care for their passengers should not be punished by new entrants who feel the only way to compete is by cheating on the safety margin. The College of Pilots is looking to set up a level playing field across our profession so it does not matter from one business to the next. These businesses can then compete on schedule, routes, aircraft type, etc. There are many ways to compete without sacrificing the safety level. I know it has been said a million times before, but the truth is if you think safety is expensive, try having an accident.
As for these events damaging the reputation of these venues, every venue got an advance copy of the presentation and the talking points before they were asked to approve or disapprove of the presentation. So we have not hid anything from them, nor in any way are we attempting to be dishonest with them. The great benefit for these venues is that their students will be able to make contacts with pilots who work at companies they may want to work for in the future. Perhaps the contacts they meet will one day write them a reference letter to get hired at a company they want to work for. Mentoring of junior pilots is a core value to the College of Pilots because it is a powerful tool for preventing junior pilots from learning things in aviation the hard way. I think about the pilot who ran out of fuel in Winnipeg and landed in a city intersection. If he had a mentor, is it possible the mentor could have prevented him from ending up in a situation he did?
In fact, I think every one of those flight schools and flying clubs should be proud they volunteered to host an evening where pilots can come together, exchange ideas, and discuss how to make our profession better and safer. I am very grateful they gave us a chance to do that. My only regret is we were not able to arrange venues in Quebec, New Brunswick, PEI, Newfoundland & Labrador, Nunavut, NWT or the Yukon. I accept personal responsibility for that and we will fix that problem next time around.
