Navcanada discontinuing approaches at under-serviced airports

[Salt]

Has anyone in NWO noticed that Atikokan is no longer a published IFR airport? I have heard that Navcanada will be eliminating approaches from airports that it sees as under served. Specifically, if the airport does not have a scheduled service and / or a certified weather station attached to it, it will be deemed to lose it's approaches in the future. Cost savings apparently. I'm wondering if the municipalities that will be affected by these changes understand the implications of this loss?

[FighterPilot]

Interesting. I can see why they don’t want the old NDB approach but what’s the actual cost of upkeep for a GPS approach. The biggest thing I can see this effecting is MEDEVAC operations. Atikokan is 2 hours from Thunder Bay and 1.5 from the Fort. I have family that have had to be MEDEVAC’d in the past out of Atikokan.

[linecrew]

I guess it makes sense as it would cost money (meaning costs me money via the user fees I pay) to support approaches at airports where they don't meet their criteria. In a case like this, if they still want an approach it would now be up to the airport itself to arrange to have an approach created by a third party. As I understand it, there's a trend for a lot of airports that don't even currently have an approach is to go have an RNAV made by companies like JetPro in Alberta.

[digits_]

I guess it makes sense as it would cost money (meaning costs me money via the user fees I pay) to support approaches at airports where they don't meet their criteria. In a case like this, if they still want an approach it would now be up to the airport itself to arrange to have an approach created by a third party. As I understand it, there's a trend for a lot of airports that don't even currently have an approach is to go have an RNAV made by companies like JetPro in Alberta.

Interesting. I know of at least one airport that financed an RNAV approach themselves, so I am kind of wondering how that would affect costs for navcanada. Would suck to pay a few thousand dollars to get an RNAV approach, only to have it decomissioned by navcanada because they think you don't use it enough. There must be more to the story.

[Victory]

Navcanada has to regularly shoot the approaches and check how much the trees have grown etc.

[digits_]

Navcanada has to regularly shoot the approaches and check how much the trees have grown etc.

Yes, but the airport pays for that, at least the one I'm talking about.

[linecrew]

Navcanada has to regularly shoot the approaches and check how much the trees have grown etc.

Yes, but the airport pays for that, at least the one I'm talking about.

Are you sure about that? I think they only maintain (and can decommission) procedures that they designed. If the airport is paying for it, then I'm pretty sure it's not a Navcanada approach procedure.

[digits_]

Navcanada has to regularly shoot the approaches and check how much the trees have grown etc.

Yes, but the airport pays for that, at least the one I'm talking about.

Are you sure about that? I think they only maintain (and can decommission) procedures that they designed. If the airport is paying for it, then I'm pretty sure it's not a Navcanada approach procedure.

All I know is the airport paid someone, a navcanada plane showed up to certify/test/whatever and it was published about a year later.

[photofly]

For an LPV approach the airport has to pay for a survey and re-survey every year. LNAV I don’t think so.

[anofly]

There is a move, in general, to make the smaller airports pay for the design , flight testing, and recurrent flight testing required of the approaches. Third party follks are designing approaches on a fee basis for smaller airports. I remember a friend designing an approach himself for his airport because he wanted one!! It worked and got published. He had to follow all the rules and back then Transport Canada helped a bit.

[Lightchop]

Has anyone in NWO noticed that Atikokan is no longer a published IFR airport? I have heard that Navcanada will be eliminating approaches from airports that it sees as under served. Specifically, if the airport does not have a scheduled service and / or a certified weather station attached to it, it will be deemed to lose it's approaches in the future. Cost savings apparently. I'm wondering if the municipalities that will be affected by these changes understand the implications of this loss?

Atikokan is an absolutely dead airport. Lots of other options nearby that should be fine for planning.

[Salt]

Atikokan is a dead airport, but the town still relies on it for medevac operations. This would be the same for Manitouwadge, Hearst, Kirkland Lake, Elliot Lake, Gore Bay etc. These airports are likely on the chopping block as well.

[linecrew]

Atikokan is a dead airport, but the town still relies on it for medevac operations. This would be the same for Manitouwadge, Hearst, Kirkland Lake, Elliot Lake, Gore Bay etc. These airports are likely on the chopping block as well.

But if this truly was an issue, wouldn't the airport take action and have their own approach put in?

[anofly]

they cannot afford it. they can barely keep the snow off them. Elliott Lake, Atikokan both used to have large, busy mines... that is what drove the dough, both mines are shutdown, so money and traffic are a lot slower to come to the airport. There was actually a provincially owned i think air service back then called norontair, twin otters on a sched running folks to these towns. They had approaches then (ndb mostly, in the 70's and early 80's)

[dpm]

According to an airport manager I talked to, Nav Canada now pays for maintaining approaches only at airports with some kind of scheduled airline service (there might be other exceptions). For example, Gatineau CYND has a few weekly scheduled flights to Quebec on Air Liason King Airs, so they still get their approaches maintained. Other airports around the greater Ottawa area (except CYOW itself, of course) have to pay to have their approaches re-tested/-certified/-whatever. One was quoted $15,000 for three years for all approaches from a private company, so it's not a huge amount of money, but still a lot for a small airport that might have only a few IFR pilots.

In either case, the approach ends up in the CAP, so you can't tell from that who's paying to recertify.

[RatherBeFlying]

NavCanada is basically a consortium of scheduled airlines who, mirabile dictu, have their own interests top of mind.

Are the provincial medevac authorities being squeezed for money by NavCanada?

[linecrew]

Are the provincial medevac authorities being squeezed for money by NavCanada?

How can Nav Canada "squeeze" anyone for money. The whole organization runs on user fees. By act of parliament they can't make a profit. All they are capable of doing is determining where the money goes (and doesn't go anymore I guess).

[Axial Flow]

It costs ~$10,000 for LNAV and an another $6000 for LPV to get your own approach designed, followed by $5000 a year in upkeep costs to designer. Why doesn't NavCanada/ICAO do a risk assessment on flight check validity times similar to aviation pilot medicals and reduce requirements. If there are regulations in place for putting up antennas/structures that may interfere with surveyed airspace and have an SMS style e-mail address for pilots to report any issues...would be interesting to note how often faults are found during flight checks that are to do with anything other than errors introduced by database/chart problems.

In Inuvik, for the last 10,000 years the hill to the north was there. Only about 5 years ago did they put a departure note not to turn before 800 feet if north bound...I don't know how those things go missed in the design phase...

[atc_is_god]

Are the provincial medevac authorities being squeezed for money by NavCanada?

How can Nav Canada "squeeze" anyone for money. The whole organization runs on user fees. By act of parliament they can't make a profit. All they are capable of doing is determining where the money goes (and doesn't go anymore I guess).

The airlines only have two seats on Nav Canada's board. And as noted, they run on a cost-recovery basis. And a huge chunk of their revenue comes from foreign carriers transiting our airspace. Our fees would be way higher if the system was only funded by domestic airplanes. Best to know what you're talking about when you're going to propose theories about something.

[valleyboy]

Would they not move the approaches over to the RCAP so approved carriers , such as Orange, could continue to operate IFR.