Air Mikisew shut down?

[looproll]

[CD]

CTA Order No. 2010-A-309: APPLICATION by Air Mikisew Ltd. carrying on business as Air Mikisew to continue the suspension of Licence Nos. 970010 and 970009

[Skydrvr7]

http://fortmcmurraytoday.com/ArticleDis ... ?e=2607204

Air Mikisew under investigation
June 3/2010


HOLLY MIYASAKI

Today staff


What started as a routine inspection by Transport Canada has turned into a mess for Fort McMurray's Air Mikisew.

This morning, the Canadian Transport Agency confirmed it had launched an investigation into the airline.

"Air Mikisew is actually now under investigation by the Canadian Transportation Agency regarding a possible violation of the Canada Transportation Act," said communications adviser Marc Comeau.


Comeau said the airline may have violated Section 59 of the act. The section states that "no person shall sell, cause to be sold or publicly offer for sale in Canada an air service unless the person holds a licence issued in respect of that service."

"What (Transport Canada) approved was an interim plan to use other aircraft to fly and then we would operate as an airline," said Dale Monaghan, chief operating officer of the Mikisew group of companies.

The airline, which voluntarily gave up its Air Operator Certificate after an inspection by Transport Canada in April, has been working to meet its mandate.

"This is an airline that 20 years ago, was put into place as a means to ensure that Fort Chipewyan was never left at the exposure of profit-oriented airlines that 20 years ago came and went and left the community stranded," said Monaghan.

Should the company be found in violation, it could face warnings, cease-and-desist orders or fines.

"It's not a red-tape thing, it's a consumer-protection thing," said Comeau.

Monaghan said Air Mikisew has hired two external consultants to do a corporate review, which will be presented to the company's owners.

The review, which will examine the strength of existing management and staff, will answer the questions of what went wrong, how did it go wrong, who is responsible and do they have the right team.

There's also an investigation looking into the legal issues for the company.

"... We believe there is criminal negligence of people going back many years, externally ... or internally," said Monaghan. "Moreso in reporting to Transport Canada ... Something in the last year has encouraged them to look deeper into records."


holly.m@fortmcmurraytoday.com

[2R]

The CARS are backed by the Criminal code.
Breaking the CARS willingly and knowingly makes you a villian in the eyes of the Law.
The days of Transport Canada hoping that the insurance rates would force bad operators ,bandits,and villians out of business may have finally come to an end.And all it took was the threat of being sued by survivors families suing the Government to get them focused on getting the deliberate rulebreakers out of the business of public transport.
Maybe with a level playing field the HONEST lawful operators will have a chance at survival.As everytime one bad guy has an accident ,everybody gets an insurance rate hike.And the good guys who spend the money to do the required inspections,and training end up subsidizing the crooks and parasites in this industry.
If they cannot follow simple rules clearly written in black and white then they should not be in the business.

Rant over

[midwingcrisis]

"This is an airline that 20 years ago, was put into place as a means to ensure that Fort Chipewyan was never left at the exposure of profit-oriented airlines that 20 years ago came and went and left the community stranded," said Monaghan.


...heaven forbid if one was to make a profit...could be a racist remark...profitable vs. non

[Gorgons]

I think the pending CTA issue revolves around the sub-chartering of other aircraft to satisfy their customers travel needs while they sort out the Transport issues. TC and the CTA are two different animals.

Once you offer up your OC to Transport you are technically not in the airline business anymore, if your not in business you can't charter up an aircraft and use it to sell seats on routes that you don't have an OC to operate on.

Not a whole lot different than being a 704 carrier and your customer has a request that requires chartering a larger 705 aircraft to meet his need, can't legally do it in the CTA's world unless you are also a 705 approved (for pax) carrier.

[double-j]

"This is an airline that 20 years ago, was put into place as a means to ensure that Fort Chipewyan was never left at the exposure of profit-oriented airlines that 20 years ago came and went and left the community stranded," said Monaghan.


...heaven forbid if one was to make a profit...could be a racist remark...profitable vs. non

I think you need to read the bold part again... left the community stranded i.e. timeair.

They started their own airline to conseve continous service.. until now of course.

Nothing rasist in this remark...move on.

[Tiger Moth]

I think the pending CTA issue revolves around the sub-chartering of other aircraft to satisfy their customers travel needs while they sort out the Transport issues. TC and the CTA are two different animals.

That is what the CTA issue is about. Mikisew was subchartering to work the medevac contract and the scheduled flights, but got a firm rap on the knuckles for that little trick. The paper says they had permission from TC to do so, but is that true or is someone just trying to cover their @ss?

[Conquest Driver]

TC and the CTA are two different animals.

There you have it. As far as TC went, it might have been OK. I'd be surprised if TC "gave them permission", but perhaps all TC cared about was that the applicable aircraft were operating under a valid OC

Anyway, to operate legally, Air Mikisew needs a minimum of 2 separate licenses. One from TC, and one from CTA. As far as I know, if Air Mikisew takes money from passengers then pays another air carrier to do the trip without a CTA license, that's illegal from a CTA point of view.

If Air Mikisew were to book passengers onto a licensed carrier, then charge that carrier a sales commission, I think that would be legal. To make that work, I think the funds would have to go to the licensed carrier who would then pay Air Mikisew their commission (follow the cash).

Please, nobody use this as a precedent, I'm not a lawyer.

I think all Air Mikisew was trying to do was take care of their customers until they could get back up and running. I don't think there was any evil intent here.

The reason all of this has sparked my interest is that I had thought Air Mikisew was an exceptionally good employer. I looked at the King Air Medevac side of things and was quite impressed. I just hope Air Mikisew somehow get this thing sorted out and get back in operation.

Best wishes.

[Ogee]

TC and the CTA are two different animals.

There you have it. As far as TC went, it might have been OK. I'd be surprised if TC "gave them permission", but perhaps all TC cared about was that the applicable aircraft were operating under a valid OC

Anyway, to operate legally, Air Mikisew needs a minimum of 2 separate licenses. One from TC, and one from CTA. As far as I know, if Air Mikisew takes money from passengers then pays another air carrier to do the trip without a CTA license, that's illegal from a CTA point of view.

If Air Mikisew were to book passengers onto a licensed carrier, then charge that carrier a sales commission, I think that would be legal. To make that work, I think the funds would have to go to the licensed carrier who would then pay Air Mikisew their commission (follow the cash).

Please, nobody use this as a precedent, I'm not a lawyer.

I think all Air Mikisew was trying to do was take care of their customers until they could get back up and running. I don't think there was any evil intent here.

The reason all of this has sparked my interest is that I had thought Air Mikisew was an exceptionally good employer. I looked at the King Air Medevac side of things and was quite impressed. I just hope Air Mikisew somehow get this thing sorted out and get back in operation.

Best wishes.

You're pretty bang on there CD. I think that any documentation has to specify the name of the licensed carrier and the carrier has to invoice, not AM.

[lost in the north]

Are they up and running yet?

[Tiger Moth]

Are they up and running yet?

Nope, but they had better get their shit together, the neighbor company is down 2 planes in 2 weeks....

[Conquest Driver]

Here's a possible solution.

They don't have a CTA license because they don't have an OC. As I understand it, they don't have an OC because of the maintainance records on their existing aircraft.

If this is true, maybe they should get one Cessna 206 or some such aircraft with squeeky clean records. That would get them the 703 OC back. That would get them back a CTA license for up to 39 passenger aircraft. That would at least allow them to sub charter aircraft and keep their existing customer base.

Just an idea, I don't want these guys to vanish.

[g5]

Which lucky buggers are flying the fish this year then?

[Gstar]

Which lucky buggers are flying the fish this year then?

I cant tell if thats good or bad.

G

[Tiger Moth]

No fish this year for anyone in the mac... sounds like there was no market for this year.

As to the Maintenance records, sounds like they are trying to pass their "brand new" B1900 that they bought from Beech and not having any luck.... maybe it's not the planes, but the system?

[DeliveryGuy]

I wish A.M. team all the best and hope they get back up and running soon. They have been moving emergency air cargo for my company for almost a year now. There customer service, communication and responsiveness for 'rush' shipments in order to keep the site (oilsands) running have been outstanding!
A true model of how a transportation service provider should operate.

Good Luck - Hope to see you flying soon!

[2R]

Anymore info on the reasons for the shut down ?

[gabo]

From what one former Mikisew employee told me is that the maintainance records were near non existant, they failed to keep records of important things such as the number of cycles of each aircraft. On of the major problems mikisew is having is proving that their planes havent gone over their maximum number of cycles. Also because of this the planes are not able to be sold or even used for parts since the records were so bad, they only plane they might be able to get flying again is the 1900 since it is a recently aquired aircraft andit wont be to difficult to go back and figure out its numbers

[Mighty 150 Flyer]

What about travel agents selling tickets? They don't hold an O.C.

[Ogee]

They are agents for a company that does have a license. It is the license, not the OC, that makes a commercial air service legal. The OC is a necessary component of the license.

Anyone can sell an air service, even bid for contracts, but somewhere in the documentation it has to state the name of the entity which holds the license to fly aircraft for money.

[swordfish]

From what one former Mikisew employee told me is that the maintainance records were near non existant, they failed to keep records of important things such as the number of cycles of each aircraft. On of the major problems mikisew is having is proving that their planes havent gone over their maximum number of cycles. Also because of this the planes are not able to be sold or even used for parts since the records were so bad, they only plane they might be able to get flying again is the 1900 since it is a recently aquired aircraft andit wont be to difficult to go back and figure out its numbers

Don't we live in an electronic age, where these types of elementary data are recorded in individual aircraft files, after the daily flight records are input into the database?

[Tiger Moth]

The entire maintenance department got the boot today...

[OceansEdge]

The entire maintenance department got the boot today...

*sigh*
seems to me that when these kinds of issues raise their ugly heads, it's rarely the low AME on the totem pole's fault or say so.... but they do make damn fine scape goats don't they - still they had a responsibility ..

[johngalt]

I don't understand how after this amount of time they couldn't put some heads together to get through the inspection. What is their plan now? Hire a new maintenance staff?