Why CBAA Corporate Operators Should Be Worried

Author: Scott Macpherson

Charter and management operators will not be nearly as disadvantaged by Transport Canada’s proposed new 604 regulations as corporate operators will be. Time for corporate flight departments to go to war.

Recently, we have all leaned on the staff at CBAA, and there have been few flight departments willing to put out the volunteer effort that was common in the CBAA’s past. Now is a critical time; in fact, it may be the most critical we have ever faced.

CBAA was born out of public disobedience in the ’50s because the airlines were allowed to take off at 1/2 mile while the same equipment in corporate service was held to 1 mile. So, CBAA charter board members such as Brick Bradford would call the regulators and say that they would operate anyway and were going to take off, then do so, and receive their fines. Brick was not alone; it is worth reading Fred Hotson’s short history of the CBAA to see why we exist and to see that in many ways not much has changed at the regulator level.

For some reason, the Transport Canada inspectors and their union resent corporate flight departments, and they are about to damage the safest sector of Canadian aviation while hiding behind a fabricated safety argument.

Get ready to fight. We have little time, and need to coordinate and divide duties, then respond thoughtfully and with good analysis and data, not just words and anger.

I’m working my way through the document and hope that everyone else is too. A complete review is critical, especially from those of us with non-commercial operational experience.

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Scott Macpherson is the President and Founder of TrainingPort.net and Vice-Chairman of the International Business Aviation Council (IBAC) Governing Board. He is currently Captain on a Falcon 900LX.