Estimated reading time 3 minutes, 36 seconds.
The Helicopter Association of Canada’s president and CEO Fred Jones issued the following bulletin to members on March 27:
It has been a wild ride – and it’s not nearly over yet.
HAC has been participating in calls with Transport Canada (TC) three times a week on this subject. Yesterday’s call was the most productive so far.
I have summarized the content of the call below:
- Exemptions to be issued shortly;
- Extension of recurrent training;
- Extension of TDG training;
- Extension of instructor ratings;
- Extension of PPCs by 60 days with the option of requesting another 30 days;
- Extension of current ACP authorities by six months.
HAC has been pushing Transport Canada to extend current and expired PPCs/medicals/ACP authorities/instructor ratings (and not just by “60 or 90 days”, but to the end of October), since so many of our employees often get these renewed in the Spring, prior to the operating season. Operators have expressed concern over a bow wave of renewals that could take place mid-season otherwise.
As you can imagine, my phone has been ringing off-the-hook from members and while many of them are in difficult financial circumstances – there seems to be a good number who think that we are going to move from staff lay-offs to shortages very soon as this pandemic deepens and our industry is called upon to start moving sick people; supplying isolated communities without air service; flying for police/security authorities/military; deploying ad-hoc health teams to communities; flood-related flying; fire-fighting (which has already started in B.C.); break-up flying; etc.
Gauging Canada’s progress on the pandemic
Media outlets seem to be focused simply on “Total cases in Canada” – which is largely meaningless if you want to see if we are “winning or losing” the battle against this virus. Here is a link that, I believe, provides real-time data in more meaningful terms.
Getting aviation-related COVID-19 information in a timely way
The CARAC website and distribution list is being used to circulate COVID-19 related information. If you are not on the distribution list you can join by sending your contact information (i.e., name, title, company/organization/email address) to the following CARAC email to be added to the distribution list:
- Canadian Aviation Regulation Advisory Council
- Transport Canada
- Government of Canada
- carrac@tc.gc.ca
Transport Canada COVID-19 website
COVID-19 information, relating to updates, guidance, measures, including Exemptions issued by TC can be found here.
Protecting your employees
Guidelines to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in the context of travel in the aviation system are under development with Public Health. That is, tools to provide your pilots and staff with appropriate procedures and PBE to prevent the spread.
Travel outside the country
Members should be aware that out-of-country medical insurance for employees may not be valid during the COVID-19 pandemic. Please contact your insurance provider for further information.
