AuxBatOn, TC is not the innocent by-stander in this battle I am waging against TFW . They have been an active partner in allowing the industry to import TFW pilots, probably under pressure from said industry, even when it involves ignoring or using extremely loose interpretation of the CARs.
You will remember this issue about British airline pilots who were issued a Canadian Airline licence after doing an Instrument Check ride in a simulator to demonstrate the skills requirement. I had posted questions about this, to which you had replied. We finally wrote to the TC Licencing Office in Ottawa to get their version. I must state that when we wrote the email to TC, we did not specify that in late 2003, over 50 British pilots were issued TC ATPLs for working for SkyService, after doing their rides in a simulator. Here is the TC reply. It was from:
Ginette Lacroix
Licensing Specialist / Spécialiste de la délivrance des licences aéronautiques
Licensing Programme Unit / Unité du programme de délivrance des licences
Place de Ville, Tower C - 330 Sparks, Ottawa, ON K1A 0N8
Tel /Tél
613) 990- 1039 Fax /Téléc.
613)990-6215
E-Mail /Courriel:
ginette.lacroix@tc.gc.ca
Pour un DEMANDEURS ÉTRANGERS
Les test en vol doivent être fait dans un avion et non un simulateur.
When after receiving this reply, we asked her about the specifics of the 50+ British pilots who all did their ride in a Sim in the fall of 2003. At first she just ignored me. When I wrote a second time, complaining that she had not replied, she forwarded the question to her boss and copied me.
Hi Bo,
Can you look at this email I probably answer him because my signature block is there.
This is who "Bo" is.
Bohdan B Skrynyk
A/Program Manager, Commercial Flight Standards
Telephone : 613-991-5667
Fax : 613-990-6215
E-mail :
bohdan.skrynyk@tc.gc.ca
Address : 330 Sparks Street
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0N5
Canada
Of course, I never heard from "Bo". This last email was in July 2014. Under the Rug! But alive and well thanks to AvCanada.
Mrs Lacroix could have replied that she had made a mistake in her first reply, but after consulting her more knowledgeable colleagues at TC, she was shown that in fact, it was permissible for a foreign licensed pilot to obtain a TC ATPL after doing a ride in a simulator because CAR xx says so in so. But she can't honestly reply such a thing to me because her first reply was the honest and correct one. So she does what all inspectors did with the FLVC issue: She passed the hot potato higher up and if I had pushed it further with "Bo", MR Martin Eley, the DG, would have been the one holding on to it on his own, like he bravely did for the FLVC fiasco.
There are many other issues involving Foreign pilot issues that involve TC. In 2011-2012 Sunwing dry-leased 5 aircraft from Thomson Airlines under CAR 203.
http://www.airliners.net/photo/Sunwing-Airlines-(Thomson/Boeing-737-8K5/2103678/L/&sid=89529eff1b83af9ee222259bb068de2f
This is a provision in the CAR that allows a Canadian carrier to dry lease a foreign registered aircraft and to operate it in Canada under foreign registration but under the Canadian Airlines' Operating Certificate. This is to avoid having to de-register and re-register aircraft twice in a short period when the lease is relatively short. This is all legal and in fact Air Transat is right now operating 4 French registered aircraft dry-leased under CAR 203.
But CAR 203 poses certain conditions. One of them is that the crew Operating them must be employees of the Lessee.
Leasing Operations
203.03 (1) No person who is not the registered owner of an aircraft shall operate the aircraft as part of a leasing operation without an authorization issued pursuant to subsection (2) unless
(d) the crew members of the aircraft are employed by the lessee;
https://books.google.ca/books?id=jW-_J_ ... 04&f=false
What is the purpose of that clause ? Evidently to avoid sham wet-leases. Those who wrote the Regulation did not want a Canadian carrier to use CAR 203 to "Dry-Lease" a foreign registered aircraft and then use pilots from the same airline that supplied the foreign aircraft to fly them, which is what a wet-lease is (in part).
Well what did Sunwing do that year ? They contracted a bunch of British pilots who were working for Thomson Airlines to come to Canada to fly the UK registered Thomson Aircraft.
I filed a CAIRS report. Here is the reply I received:
These foreign flight-crew personnel, while employed directly by another company, are under the operational control of and considered to be contract employees of Sunwing or Canjet.
So was CAR 203(1)(d) violated or not ? Would TC's explanation hold water in court ? If any
foreign flight-crew personnel, while employed directly by another company, are under the operational control of and considered to be contract employees of Sunwing
when would CAR 203(1)(d) ever apply to any company ? Why was it even written into the CARs if any pilot is considered a contract employee ?
Those four French Registered aircraft Air Transat now operates were leased from Transavia France. Imagine that at the same time Air Transat had dry-leased these four aircraft, it had also contracted with Transavia France for about 60 of its French pilots to come over to Canada and fly the aircraft ? This would be in contravention of CAR 203(1)(d) even if the French pilots had Canadian ATPLs and Permanent Resident Status in Canada. The pilots, as employees of the
Lessor could not be at the same time considered as contract employees of the
Lessee so as to satisfy the restriction in CAR 203(1)(d). Yet this is exactly what Sunwing did, with TC's blessing........
I could provide several other examples of TC complicity in helping the airline Industry to hire Foreign pilots right now, right off the top of my head, but you will not read any of it or ignore most of my pointed arguments and reply something futile that justifies all of it, as you have been doing, so I will spare you.......
