Commuters in Canada

[Bede]

I working on submissions on behalf of the WestJet Pilot Association to the Review of the Canada Transportation Act by David Emerson. Does anyone have a rough guess on the number of pilots and FA commuters at Air Canada, Air Transat, Jazz, Porter & Sunwing?

If you work at any of those airlines and could venture a rough guess, I'd appreciate it.

Feel free to PM if you want.

[mbav8r]

I was once told around 40% at Jazz, given they once had bases in YYJ, YXE, YEG, YXU and YHZ(no longer pilot base), a reduction by half of the YVR base and now most are commuters, there are a lot of commuters. I wouldn't be surprised if it was more.

[Starting 4]

Define "commuters" - unless you live at the airport we all commute. At what distance from the based airport does one become a "commuter"?

[No Quarter]

The ones that pay the AIF to get to work he means.

[PositiveRate27]

Are there many people commuting from the west coast to Toronto?

[moe]

Yes, lots....

[av8ts]

By west coast do you mean Deer Lake?

[jd832]

My last airline was in the United States where it was free to fly on any carrier. The United States has CASS (cockpit access security system) which is a database of all pilots which allows the gate agent to grant you access to the flight deck jump seat if the all the cabin seats are occupied provided the captains approval.

How can we lobby to have the same system up here in Canada that they have in the U.S.? I should be a professional courtesy to allow flight crew members to ride for free within the country on all the operators to get to and from work.

[mbav8r]

It was a few years ago now, T.C granted approval for pilots to occupy the Jumpseat of another airline. The catch was, a system had to be created like the CASS system which of course cost money and none of said airlines were willing to step up, so it fell by the wayside.
It would be upto the pilot groups to get together and create and fund this project, now imagine if you don't commute and your Union asks you to fund this, probably a none starter.
Would you or any commuter pay for the entire system that all pilots would have access to or just keep paying for your own commute?