One Size Doesn’t Fit All

A group of Canadian aviation industry associations has banded together to protest the recommendations made by a working group that was struck to evaluate and propose amendments to the country’s flight crew fatigue risk management system. According to Helicopter Association of Canada (HAC) president and CEO, Fred Jones, the group’s final recommendations are the result of “an extremely unfair and unbalanced process” that, when taken together, pose the “greatest threat to the economic viability of our industry today.”

The HAC has joined forces with four other industry associations, including the Air Transport Association of Canada (ATAC), the Canadian Business Aviation Association (CBAA), the Manitoba Aviation Council (MAC), and the Northern Air Transport Association (NATA). Together, the five organizations represent the lion’s share of Canadian aviation operators that would be subject to the changes proposed in the working group’s report. Despite this fact, however, NATA executive director Stephen Nourse, said, “Our objections are that once you move away from the large scheduled carriers, we don’t think proper consideration has been given to the smaller, on-demand carriers, business operations, helicopter operators, etc. The chairs of this working group have presented a one size fits all solution. They’re trying to apply airline-type rules across Canadian aviation, and in many cases it just doesn’t make sense.”

The Flight Crew Fatigue Management Working Group has roots going back to 2010, when it was struck by the Canadian Aviation Regulation Advisory Council (CARAC) Technical Committee. Its purpose was to review and propose amendments to the Canadian Aviation Regulations (CARs) relating to the management of flight crew fatigue. The working group had three main objectives, which included using the latest scientific data to review Canada’s existing flight time and duty time limitations and mandatory rest periods. The goal was to develop regulatory proposals and amendments which would consider the country’s unique operating environment, making alternate recommendations for effective fatigue management where it was deemed necessary.

Led by co-chairs Captain Dan Adamus, president of the Air Line Pilots Association International’s Canada Board, and Transport Canada’s Jacqueline Booth, chief of technical program evaluation and coordination, standards, the working group met 14 times between August 2010 and December 2011. Eleven industry organizations were members of the group, including airline pilot associations, Transport Canada, labour unions, and a variety of related bodies, including the five industry associations mentioned above. Several expert advisers were also in attendance, including a medical professional who contributed information about fatigue and its physical effects. The group’s draft report was issued on Aug. 15, 2012.

At this point, the recommendations contained in the draft report are just that – recommendations. But Jones likens the situation to a train that is coming down the track. “Just because it’s three or four years down the line doesn’t mean it’s not going to hurt when it arrives.”

The small operator representatives participating in the working group have filed numerous objections to what they perceive as the co-chairs’ airline-centric approach, offering a series of possible segment-specific solutions instead. However, in their final dissent submitted to the working group leaders on Sept. 3, the five organizations maintain that, “Not a single industry segment-specific proposal, even in a modified form, advanced by the signatory associations was adopted by the Working Group Chairs in the Final Report.”

The Devil is in the Details
So why should smaller operators be concerned about the working group’s recommendations for prescriptive flight, duty and rest periods, and corresponding fatigue management regulations?

Sam Barone, president and CEO of the CBAA, explained using an example: “Let’s take a Global Express flying from Toronto to Hong Kong. Some of the recommendations they are making in terms of duty time and rest periods essentially negate the benefit of having a long-haul business aircraft capable of doing that flight. They would have to stop and reset the duty time [under the proposed recommendations].”

A commercial operator long-haul fatigue risk management approach is not appropriate for smaller operators, added Barone. “Business aviation is based on flexibility and productivity. We are already addressing fatigue risk management effectively now, through policies that are in line with international standards for business aviation. We’re looking for an operating framework that is the best fit for the operating realities of each industry segment. That’s it in a nutshell.”

Jones contributed an example from a rotary operator perspective. “Under the existing CARs, a pilot could work 42 days straight with time off before and after. The industry norm in the helicopter industry is more like 30-day tours, but it may be slightly longer than that, and there is some flexibility in there. However, the recommendation in the working group report proposes a maximum of 15 days on, and five off. That is a radical departure from what operators are doing today – quite safely, I might add! That is just one example where a one size fits all solution doesn’t work. If we had to implement the recommendations the way they are now, it would be necessary to double-crew helicopters in the field, and rotate crews in and out roughly two to three times as often as we do now.”

Helicopter operators are unique in that many of their operations take place in remote regions of the country. The cost of switching out flight crews can be significant when it can take a full day just to travel to a job site.

Another contentious issue is the possible introduction of a cumulative duty hour requirement, which would be completely new to the CARs. Small operators are vehemently opposed to this plan, which would see pilots keeping track of how many hours they’ve been on duty during a running period.

“There are concerns in the medevac and firefighting worlds, for example, where a lot of time is spent waiting,” said NATA’s Nourse. “Because of the way the proposed duty day recommendations are structured, a crew could duty out just sitting around. So how do you do these EMS-type operations? Plus, there’s a huge concern safety-wise, because those pilots won’t be flying enough to keep current. You can have a very well-rested pilot, but if they’re not current they could be dangerous.”

Small operators who do multiple takeoffs and landings – medevac helicopters, for example – could see their duty days reduced according to the number of sectors, or legs, flown on each trip. If they happen to start their day within the time frame that disrupts the body’s natural circadian rhythm (2 a.m. to 6 a.m.), then that duty day will be further reduced. As well, rules tailored for specific industry sectors, such as those for heli-logging, will be removed and those companies will need to conform to the rules like every other operator.

Currently, a pilot’s duty time is zeroed out after five or more consecutive days free from duty. Scientific evidence supports the fact that this time away from work eliminates fatigue, leaving the pilot refreshed upon their return to the job. Under the proposed changes, however, this “zeroing” of accumulated flight time will no longer be permitted.

All of these changes will necessitate a lot of monitoring and management. “The complexity of the new rules, bluntly-put, will be beyond the ability of flight crew members to manage in an unscheduled, on-demand, pilot self-dispatch environment,” wrote the five smaller-operator associations, in their combined letter of final dissent.

“I think it will be extremely difficult to enforce. The proposals are so complicated. It will be a fiasco,” said Jones. “The airlines have crew scheduling departments, but most helicopter operators do not.”
Dennis Lyons, president of the MAC, said the recommendations could be devastating for 702, 703 and 704 unscheduled charter operators. “Already we’re hearing from several operators who would have to increase staff by about 40 per cent to do the same work they’re doing now,” he said. “In all likelihood, they will stop servicing those communities. That’s the kind of impact we’re talking about that has not been taken into account.”

Lyons added that the working group’s report works well for scheduled 705 international air carriers. But the differences between them and smaller operators are many – owing to Canada’s vast geography, the seasonal nature of many aviation operations, and extreme daylight shifts.

Nourse, an expert on the challenges facing northern operators, said, “It would be very difficult for the small operators who, because of the seasonality of their operations, need to make their money in the long summer days. They’d end up having to try to double crew a light airplane. The economics of operating under those circumstances go right out the window.”

Sector Solutions
Jones pointed out that the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the United States both decided to abandon the one size fits all approach to managing pilot fatigue. In both cases, regulations have been ironed out for large airlines, with those pertaining to smaller operators to be addressed in the future. This, he said, will allow those regulatory bodies to tailor sector-specific solutions.

“We have so many different segments of the aviation industry in Canada,” said the CBAA’s Barone. “I think it has been a bit of a ‘boiling the ocean’ approach, and doing it by segment might have made it a bit easier.” The five dissenting associations want to see the working group’s recommendations acknowledge the operational differences that exist within Canadian aviation. “Everybody in the working group agrees fatigue is an issue that needs to be managed. But these are rules from the commercial world; you can’t impose airline-type rules on a sector that is not an airline, at the end of the day,” said Barone.

Catastrophic Effect
The five allied associations believe that if the working group’s current recommendations for managing flight crew fatigue are implemented across the industry, small Canadian operators will pay a high price. The final dissent prepared by the group refers to an anticipated “catastrophic effect on the operation of CAR 604, 702, 703 and 704 aircraft.”

At the time of writing, the CARAC Technical Committee was scheduled to consider the working group’s recommendations on flight crew fatigue management at its Nov. 6-7 meeting in Ottawa.

Small operators who are concerned about flight crew fatigue management and the working group’s proposed regulatory changes are encouraged to make their views known to the Director General Civil Aviation, Martin Eley, at martin.eley@tc.gc.ca (with a copy to any of the five dissenting associations).

“It also wouldn’t hurt to copy your local Member of Parliament to heighten their sensitivity to the issue,” Jones told Canadian Skies. “There aren’t many issues that are as important as this one in our industry.”

Lisa Gordon is editor-in-chief of MHM Publishing’s Canadian Skies magazine.