Foriegn Workers....

[Blackmac]

 

L3 Driver:

 

" Could government and industry work together to help bring up Canadian 100 hr pilots? I think they could and not doing so is being very short sighted,"

 

I highlighted that because a certain association (HEPAC) put a proposal to HRDC along the exact lines you are talking about, proposal was refused.

 

The industry (owners club) plays games with HRDC such as the requirement to advertise in newspapers for pilots (experienced) beyond belief. Normally the advertising is done in newspapers that nobody read, i.e The Inuvik Times.

 

To be fair to HRDC they don't know any better, they are just being taken advantage of by the owners club. Not all to be fair, but they all know how to play the game.

 

I sometimes wonder who is the expert in HRDC who OK's these requests.

 

At one time the industry was fun to work in, now it exists as a cutthroat operation for the client departments that call the shots on everything from safety to what your services as a professional are worth.

 

Welcome aboard.

 

Don

 

PS: You will notice that I retired from the industry in 1988, one year after deregulation. That is when the FUN ended.

[sling]

L3 Driver:

 

" Could government and industry work together to help bring up Canadian 100 hr pilots? I think they could and not doing so is being very short sighted,"

 

I highlighted that because a certain association (HEPAC) put a proposal to HRDC along the exact lines you are talking about, proposal was refused.

 

The industry (owners club) plays games with HRDC such as the requirement to advertise in newspapers for pilots (experienced) beyond belief. Normally the advertising is done in newspapers that nobody read, i.e The Inuvik Times.

 

To be fair to HRDC they don't know any better, they are just being taken advantage of by the owners club. Not all to be fair, but they all know how to play the game.

 

I sometimes wonder who is the expert in HRDC who OK's these requests.

 

At one time the industry was fun to work in, now it exists as a cutthroat operation for the client departments that call the shots on everything from safety to what your services as a professional are worth.

 

Welcome aboard.

 

Don

 

PS: You will notice that I retired from the industry in 1988, one year after deregulation. That is when the FUN ended.

 

 

Mac, i 'm interested by this hole deregulation thing. what is it exacly ??? no more landing at wall mart on saturday!!!

 

If you got a link net or somethin to read about, i would appreciate...

 

thanks!

[Blackmac]

Sling:

 

You would have to understand the present system, which is basically non existent, to understand the system prior to 1987.

 

I will give you some good reading though, via this link. GOOGLE works wonders.

 

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=Na...=cr%3DcountryCA

 

Have fun.

 

Cheers, Don :blur: :prop:

 

[sling]

Sling:

 

You would have to understand the present system, which is basically non existent, to understand the system prior to 1987.

 

I will give you some good reading though, via this link. GOOGLE works wonders.

 

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=Na...=cr%3DcountryCA

 

Have fun.

 

Cheers, Don :blur: :prop:

 

thank you Don!

 

WTF.... a got reading for a year or so!!!

should be interesting tho...

 

Hey by the way, mayby you folks don't relly care but today.......i saw the future!!!

[Over-Talk]

Sling, here's the basics...(Blackmac, please pardon my crude explanation).

Back before 1978 the air industry was "regulated"....i.e. it was very hard to start a new business, fly a new route, or even change the fares you charged.

Most 'new' companies started by buying the 'licence' of an existing company, then 'moving' the company to another part of the country.

 

Then most nations in the Western world de-regulated around 1978. This basically allowed any Joe to lease or buy a helicopter (or Boeing 737) and start a business.....then all he had to do was survive!!

And what better way to survive is there than slash rates to lower levels than your competition!!! (and maybe slash some employee wages too).

 

The debate about the pros and cons of de-regulation can go on forever.

This forum topic is about foreign workers, which has little to do with de-regulation, but more about immigration permits etc.

But in the eyes of many people, almost any "problem' in our industry today can be linked back to the 'open market/free enterprise' system that de-regulation gave us.

 

Here is a very good article written by David Morris, of AlterNet.

 

It was written back in 2005, and in the U.S., and is mainly about fixed-wing air carriers, but it has some great points, and those points are very applicable even to our helicopter industry in Canada today.

 

by David Morris, of AlterNet 2005,

A month ago, I was searching online for a nonstop flight from Albany, N.Y. to Washington, D.C. United's flight was full, but a direct flight was available from a company called Independence Air and it was $100 cheaper. I was intrigued. Having never heard of that airline, I did what any seasoned traveler would do -- I googled it. A story from USA Today, dated the day before, reported that Independence Air's CEO had just notified the securities community that the airline might file for bankruptcy, perhaps even before my flight was to take off.

Independence Air: born 2004, died 2005, a remarkably common corporate tombstone in the era of deregulated airlines.

This July, the Government Accounting Office issued a report discussing the dismal financial state of the industry. "While the airlines industry was deregulated 27 years ago, the full effect on the airline industry's structure is only now becoming evident," it concluded.

In the 27 years before airline deregulation, no airline went bankrupt. Since 1978, 160 airlines have come and gone. In the last quarter-century, the rate of bankruptcy among air carriers has been as much as 10 times higher than that of the general business community. In 2005, virtually all major airlines are either in bankruptcy (United and US Air were joined Wednesday by Delta and Northwest) or on the verge of bankruptcy. How did we come to this?

In the late 1970s, the airline system was straining under an inflexible and cumbersome regulatory system. A long, drawn-out proceeding was needed simply to get permission from the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) for employees of two affiliated airlines to wear similar uniforms! Something needed to be done.

The liberals in control of Congress, the White House and the CAB opted for revolution rather than evolution. Rather than mend the existing system, they blew it up. By the early 1980s, federal controls over the entry and exit of airlines, over flight schedules and airfares were abolished. Quality of service requirements ended. Financial oversight was abandoned. Only airline safety remained under federal regulation.

Today, conservatives control Congress and the White House, and they fight even the tiniest move to reestablish some federal control over airlines. A near consensus exists that airline deregulation, in the words of The Economist, has been a "virtually unqualified success."

From my perspective, the cost-benefit analysis of airline deregulation depends on how wide a lens one is using.

Advocates of deregulation point to the fact that the number of air passengers has soared since 1978. They rarely note that it soared just as fast in the years before deregulation. They point out that airline rates have dropped significantly since deregulation for most (but not all) passengers. They rarely divulge that rates fell just as fast in the 27 years before deregulation.

Indeed, the use of price alone as a measure of success is looking increasingly suspect. In the last four years, for example, airfares have dropped more than 15 percent. In the same time frame, 20 airlines have gone bankrupt. United and US Air have walked away from their pension obligations. Northwest just imposed a 25 percent unilateral wage reduction on its machinists. The industry as a whole has lost $25 billion. This is not healthy competition.

The most ardent proponents of airline deregulation argue that as much as half the price decrease since 1978, or about 20 percent overall, is a result of deregulation. Others argue that this figure is wildly exaggerated. For example, the emergence of internet booking alone may have had a substantial impact on ticket prices, since it all but eliminated the 10 percent commission travel agents had earned for booking flights.

So let's split the difference and say deregulation has resulted in a 10 percent ticket price reduction; perhaps $35 on a typical round-trip flight. That's the benefit. What's the cost?

In 1978, when you bought a ticket, it was fully refundable. You could change flights without penalties. No Saturday night stayovers were required. Today most people who receive steep discounts must spend more time on the road, either staying over extra days or traveling from more distant airports. People fly into Baltimore or Dulles rather than Washington National. They save money on the ticket, and spend another hour or so and $30-$45 more for the cab.

Airline passengers may have saved 10 percent, but hundreds of thousands of people have lost their jobs or their job security or their pensions.

From the perspective of 2005, some of the horror stories bandied about by those who argued for deregulation in the 1970s seem less, well, horrible. One regulation critic noted that the CAB approved fewer than 10 percent of airline applications to open new service routes between l965 to 1978. But in the 1970s the load factor on planes (the number of seats filled for an average flight) was about 50 percent. Why should new routes have been approved?

In 1973-74 oil prices quadrupled. But there were no bankruptcies in the airline industry. The operational cost increases were passed through to the customers.

Yes, we paid a price for airline stability and continuity and job security (and pretzels, pillows, meals and movies). But the price was modest. Overall, if we take into account the full costs to employees, customers and communities, the regulatory era almost surely had a more positive cost-benefit ratio than the one in which we now live.

 

 

[Blackmac]

OverTalk;

 

Thanks for the article and summary, simplified and well stated. With all the airlines being affected in the manner stated, you can well imagine the much smaller helicopter industry. We vote them in and live with government bullshyte. Not necessarily the politicians, but the so called PUBLIC SERVANT who wants to build his/her own empire that he/she THINKS the industry should have and of course the industry cowtows to him/her. You would think that as we progress things would get better, HA.

 

Rant over, Don

 

PS: back to those furners. The actual good people.

[cap]

OR put another way:

 

Before 'Deregulation' it wasn't that terribly difficult to start an aviation business that provided air services to the general public..........IF you were preparded and able to invest some of YOUR own

'unencumbered' monies into the venture. You were required to have at least a building for a/c maintence. As you were serving the public. it was also required that you have washroom facilities for the general public. Competitors could not come into your area of operations to compete against you and other established operators without Transport Canada advising you all firstly AND the prospective operator was required to post his intentions in local newspapers in the general area. If your venture failed for some reason, you suffered a financial penalty along with others who had a part in your attempt.

 

After 'Deregulation' you could lease your a/c of whatever type and size from whatever company you so chose. You could supply that a/c with nothing more than a grease gun with two tips, a box of KimTowels, some tins of oil and a cheap contract pilot. You could send that a/c to wherever you so desired in Canada and use that point as your operations HQ. No building was required to be built, no washrooms needed and the financial investment did not compare in any regard. You could now 'undercut' the local, long-established operators as much as you pleased and if they didn't like it....."well tough bananas". Your overhead compared to theirs was laughable and they could not compete. If your company filed for bankruptcy at the end of the summer, you lost a contract pilot who was finished anyway and returned the leased a/c. It was the company that went bankrupt and not you, so you were free to do it all over again next summer after waiting 32 days and using a different company designation next time.

[Blackmac]

Cap: Being an "old fart" doesn't stop you from passing on the "good word", very well said. Thank God you can remember.

 

Taken from "Overtalks" post.

 

This July, the Government Accounting Office issued a report discussing the dismal financial state of the industry. "While the airlines industry was deregulated 27 years ago, the full effect on the airline industry's structure is only now becoming evident," it concluded.

 

When doing contracting for the feds I advised them at the time that between deregulation and NAFTA you could feasibly get a response to an RFP from anywhere in North America and have to accept it. The only reason we didn't was because the CDN $ was so low and we had already started cutting our own throats.

Got a bid for a Twin Otter (300 series) in Resolute for $560/hr + fuel, when the lowest price down south for a 100 series was $1000/hr + fuel.

 

Go figure.

 

Hey Cap, last year my wife got me one of those "scrooge" nightgowns from Lee Valley, toque fits, now all I have to find is the socks and gloves to match. Your age is not hard to figure out. Lets see, if Larry C (RIP) was X years and I was five years younger, how old are you????

 

Save me a spot in the home.

 

Cheers, Don

 

 

[Skids Up]

Cap...how old are you????

 

If you can figure out the age of dirt, Cap is 5 years younger than that... :lol:

 

How are you doing old guy? Haven't seen you around in awhile.

 

klw

[cap]

Blackmac ------I can also remember when the air was clean and sex was dirty, but that info and maybe $1.89 will get me a 'Double-Double' at Tim Horton's.........that's all.