Government to cut pilot evaluators for large airlines, risking safety: critics
VANCOUVER, B.C. — Transport Canada is planning to stop evaluating pilots who perform checks on their counterparts at the country’s largest airlines and will instead give the responsibility to the operators, a change critics say erodes oversight and public safety.
Documents show Transport Canada made the decision in May when the House of Commons transport committee was reviewing aviation safety and subsequently recommended more on-site inspections generally of the airline industry instead of paper audits.
A risk assessment document and an internal letter from Transport Canada’s director of national operations for civil aviation were obtained under an access to information request by the Canadian Federal Pilots Association, the bargaining agent for about 450 pilots, most of whom work for the federal government.
Transport Canada’s evaluators test so-called check pilots for the large airlines, who in turn evaluate the pilots in their own organizations.