Apprentice pilots, training schools and retirees who want to return to service are grounded by bureaucracy at Transport Canada, which takes months to process medical files. A situation that exacerbates recruitment difficulties at a time when the airline industry is taking off again.
He’s about to blow his 68e candle, but the desire is too strong: Jean-Pierre Avoine wants to return to the cockpits. At his age, this retiree from Air Canada no longer has the right to fly international routes, but a job with a regional carrier awaits him. The problem: he lacks the medical certificate from the federal authorities – often the last step in renewing a license.
“My medical examination (with a civil aviation medical examiner) happened last August and I have no more news, tells The Press the old pilot. If they tell me I can’t fly anymore, I’ll make my way after that, but if it’s Transport Canada’s inaction, that bothers me. This is bureaucratic incompetence. »
The processing time for a file was previously approximately 40 days. Since the arrival of COVID-19, this schedule no longer holds and the situation, already denounced in the past, is not improving much.
This is in addition to the restricted availability of simulators and other regulatory requirements that complicate recruitment. According to preliminary data compiled by the team of Mehran Ebrahimi, professor at the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM) and director of the Civil Aviation Observatory, there is a shortage of between 1,400 and 1,900 pilots nationwide.
“We were among the last countries to come to the aid of the airline industry during the pandemic and we did not really support the airports”, underlines the expert.
This is not surprising with medical certification. As with the passport crisis, it seems like the extreme limit has to be reached before things change.
Mehran Ebrahimi, professor at UQAM and director of the Civil Aviation Observatory
Radio silence
Mr. Avoine is far from alone in tapping his foot. The Press has collected numerous testimonials from pilots, training schools and aspiring pilots. Air traffic controllers are also affected by these bureaucratic delays. A publication made in an online discussion group on the subject made it possible to receive a dozen testimonies in just a few minutes. They concerned category 1 medical certificates for pilots holding a commercial licence.
Hugues Lavigne is part of the group. After a refusal in 2018, this 30-year-old is trying his luck again in order to be able to obtain the authorizations which will allow him to follow training in order to become a commercial pilot. He says he paid $2,100 to obtain reports from a neuropsychiatrist and an ophthalmologist to prove that he meets Transport Canada’s requirements.
“I sent all of this in November 2020,” he said. I received a letter in September 2021 telling me that a document was missing. After sending it, I have no further news. Nothing. It’s dead. I call from time to time. I send emails, but never get a response. I put all that aside. I’m waiting for it to thaw. »
The Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), which prides itself on being the world’s largest union of airline pilots and which counts Air Transat and WestJet pilots among its members, says that the “backlog of medical certificates remain a concern” at Transport Canada even though an improvement has been observed over the past year.
The picture is no rosier on the side of training schools, where students sometimes wait up to a year before obtaining their medical certification, says Thierry Dugrippe, director of operations at Air Richelieu, established at Montreal airport. Saint-Hubert, in the southern suburbs of the metropolis.
PHOTO ANDRÉ PICHETTE, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Thierry Dugrippe is director of operations at Air Richelieu.
He has noted a “slight improvement” in recent times, but he believes that “the service offer” is still “inadequate and unacceptable” in the federal public service.
There are students who had started their training and were forced to stop because they had no answer.
Thierry Dugrippe, director of operations at Air Richelieu
“How come it always takes so long?” There seems to be a management problem. We are helpless. It is extremely hard and complex to manage,” laments Mr. Dugrippe.
Expected recovery
In an email, Transport Canada says it processes 60,000 medical certificate requests annually. The federal ministry justifies certain delays by “high demand for services and the complexity of certain files”.
“New demands […] or those of a more complex nature require more time to be assessed to ensure public safety, writes Hicham Ayoun, spokesperson for the ministry. Transport Canada continues to assess needs in terms of human resources, training of medical personnel and administrative support. »
The portrait for 2020 and 2021 contains inaccuracies on the number of valid licenses in force, specifies Statistics Canada. The agency attributes the situation to medical exemptions issued during the pandemic. The Statistics Canada system only counts pilots who hold a valid certificate.
Additional questions from The Press to take stock of the size of the current workforce compared to that before the pandemic went unanswered. No timeline was provided as to when things might get back to normal.
A sign that things are getting back on their feet in the industry, Air Transat is looking for around 100 pilots by August since four aircraft will be added to its fleet this year. The carrier says recruitment is going well, but it’s evidence that demand is set to grow after the pandemic turmoil.