In the coming months Transport Canada will significantly restrict operating limits at hundreds of small airports across Canada.  Canadians, especially those living in rural and remote areas will be the most adversely affected.  Canadian communities rely on their airports for vital medivac services, law enforcement, search and rescue, economic support, and much more.  Transport Canada’s new restrictions will ultimately cost lives and jobs.

The current operating limits have served our communities very well for decades; there has never been an accident attributed to those limits.  The new, more restrictive limits, proposed by Transport Canada, will not improve that record. They will, however, significantly reduce the ability of Canada’s airports to meet the essential needs of their communities, especially vital medivac operations.  These new, ill-conceived restrictions will cost lives and livelihoods.

Transport Canada’s proposed changes affect the minimum altitude above the airport that aircraft are permitted to descend to during a landing approach in poor weather.  In many cases, today’s limits allow aircraft to land when clouds are as low as 200 feet above the airport.  In the future, clouds must be at least 500 feet above the airport.  However, faster jet and turboprop aircraft such as those used for medivac flights may not be permitted to use an airport at all.

As a pilot and concerned citizen, it is unclear to me what issue Transport Canada is even addressing with these new restrictions and they have not published any risk analysis or impact assessment. More importantly, there has been no consultation with community leaders, airport operators, hospitals, law enforcement agencies, or businesses that rely on these airports. I firmly believe the proposed restrictions will harm more Canadian than they help.

Please Review Transport Canada's AC301-001.