Heard today through a third party source (someone who works at Nav Canada) that there will unfortunately be additional layoffs and he was afraid for his job. Another month has gone by since this thread was started, and unfortunately still no news about assistance for the industry in Canada aside from the odd rumour that there were discussions ongoing.

yzfElite wrote:

Heard today through a third party source (someone who works at Nav Canada) that there will unfortunately be additional layoffs and he was afraid for his job. Another month has gone by since this thread was started, and unfortunately still no news about assistance for the industry in Canada aside from the odd rumour that there were discussions ongoing.

Presumably additional trainees and not certified controllers?

atcsundevil wrote:

yzfElite wrote:

Heard today through a third party source (someone who works at Nav Canada) that there will unfortunately be additional layoffs and he was afraid for his job. Another month has gone by since this thread was started, and unfortunately still no news about assistance for the industry in Canada aside from the odd rumour that there were discussions ongoing.

Presumably additional trainees and not certified controllers?

I don't know for sure, but seems like they are looking at ways to further trim costs. The person I know who is nervous is in a head office role.

NAV Canada has been messing around with some rather busy, important airports. First the disaster closing Buttonville tower and now they want to close Windsor as well, which will likely cost them their commercial flights (more important than ever given the ridiculous partial land border closure). This is exactly why privatized ATC is a joke.

Why would closing a tower stop commercial flights?

They are proposing to close the tower in Whitehorse as well. There's currently a number of local companies and groups that are pretty strongly and vocally trying to keep it open. Meetings, petitions, etc. all going around now.

Up until the pandemic the traffic did justify it and was growing for a number of consecutive years, and the fear is once it closes it won't be coming back when the traffic comes back.

The tower is certainly needed for safety during busy times of the day, but apparently towers with a lot of VFR traffic don't make money so they want to take it away purely as a cost savings excersice with safety as a side note.

Not sure how things go in Canada but in the US we have plenty of airports that are uncontrolled with airline service.. Some are tuff when flight training is going on in the pattern. But for the most part its very doable and safe.

Wow. Sham on NAV Canada. It's funny how long they've been bragging how well their private system works. Now they are being forced to close towers!? Pathetic.

NavCan's level of service policy. (p.12 is the important one here)

https://www.navcanada.ca/EN/about-us/Co ... icy-EN.pdf

Basically, airports with less than 60,000 movements a year run the risk of losing their control tower service. Between 20,000 and 40,000, with a certain amount of scheduled service, you can qualify for FSS service. You can also qualify for FSS service with no scheduled service, as long as the airport handles over 40,000 movements. The note at the bottom of the page is of interest as well, which states that exceptions can be made based on the site specific traffic mix.

Latest annual aircraft movements (2019) at the airports NavCan commenced level of service reviews recently.

YXY - 47,557
YQR - 50,700
YQG - 44,000
YXS - 41,600
YMM - 44,635
YAM - 57,376
YJN - 45,000

Level of service review documents for each airport listed can be found here.

Let's not forget in the last year, NavCan reopened the tower at YMX and also at YQF.

Now I'm by no means condoning what NavCan is doing here. I'm simply stating some facts and showing what NavCan is basing their decisions on.

My quick math results in an average of 64 landings and 64 takeoffs/day at YXY (Whitehorse).

Although that doesn't sound too stressful for the staff it does seem like a lot of traffic to automate especially considering the isolation of the area.
I wish the Yukon would up their taxes though considering that they have some of the lowest taxes in Canada along with some of the highest per capita Federal government spending.
As much as I hate government/crown corporation slack and inefficiency I can't see any of these towers closing.

Thenoflyzone wrote:

NavCan's level of service policy. (p.12 is the important one here)

https://www.navcanada.ca/EN/about-us/Co ... icy-EN.pdf

Basically, airports with less than 60,000 movements a year run the risk of losing their control tower service. Between 20,000 and 40,000, with a certain amount of scheduled service, you can qualify for FSS service. You can also qualify for FSS service with no scheduled service, as long as the airport handles over 40,000 movements. The note at the bottom of the page is of interest as well, which states that exceptions can be made based on the site specific traffic mix.

Latest annual aircraft movements (2019) at the airports NavCan commenced level of service reviews recently.

YXY - 47,557
YQR - 50,700
YQG - 44,000
YXS - 41,600
YMM - 44,635
YAM - 57,376
YJN - 45,000

Level of service review documents for each airport listed can be found here.

Let's not forget in the last year, NavCan reopened the tower at YMX and also at YQF.

Now I'm by no means condoning what NavCan is doing here. I'm simply stating some facts and showing what NavCan is basing their decisions on.

I’ve been closely following each airport’s respective local news around this topic. The folks in Windsor have been most vocal and with good reason. Pre-pandemic, YQG’s movements were steadily increasing. Also, YQG is a lot busier than they look with DTW traffic, and even DET.

YAM has said they’re planning for another 20k movements a year with an expanded Sault College flight school.

St-Jean is the only one that makes sense to get downgraded to a FSS.

I wonder if there’s any talk from cities about subsidizing their local NavCan towers to remain fully operational until traffic recovers? If traffic was still booming, I don’t think NavCan would be too concerned with these small airports.

Layoff notices issued to ATC at YQR: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatch ... -1.5896077

Thenoflyzone wrote:

NavCan's level of service policy. (p.12 is the important one here)

https://www.navcanada.ca/EN/about-us/Co ... icy-EN.pdf

Basically, airports with less than 60,000 movements a year run the risk of losing their control tower service. Between 20,000 and 40,000, with a certain amount of scheduled service, you can qualify for FSS service. You can also qualify for FSS service with no scheduled service, as long as the airport handles over 40,000 movements. The note at the bottom of the page is of interest as well, which states that exceptions can be made based on the site specific traffic mix.

Latest annual aircraft movements (2019) at the airports NavCan commenced level of service reviews recently.

YXY - 47,557
YQR - 50,700
YQG - 44,000
YXS - 41,600
YMM - 44,635
YAM - 57,376
YJN - 45,000

Level of service review documents for each airport listed can be found here.

Let's not forget in the last year, NavCan reopened the tower at YMX and also at YQF.

Now I'm by no means condoning what NavCan is doing here. I'm simply stating some facts and showing what NavCan is basing their decisions on.

Are statistics pertaining to traffic mix available publicly somewhere? It would be interesting to know what it looks like.

brodeurprice wrote:

Are statistics pertaining to traffic mix available publicly somewhere? It would be interesting to know what it looks like.

Yes. Statscan.

Aircraft movements, by class of operation and peak hour and peak day of movements, for airports with NAV CANADA towers, monthly

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en ... 2310000201

Itinerant movements, by type of operation, airports with NAV CANADA towers, monthly

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en ... 2310000401

Link to many more aircraft movement documents:

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/subj ... _movements

Thenoflyzone wrote:

brodeurprice wrote:

Are statistics pertaining to traffic mix available publicly somewhere? It would be interesting to know what it looks like.

Yes. Statscan.

Aircraft movements, by class of operation and peak hour and peak day of movements, for airports with NAV CANADA towers, monthly

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en ... 2310000201

Itinerant movements, by type of operation, airports with NAV CANADA towers, monthly

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en ... 2310000401

Link to many more aircraft movement documents:

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/subj ... _movements

Thank you very much!

Some good news ! NavCan, earlier this week, decided to cancel all planned ATC layoffs at some of their ACCs.

https://www.navcanada.ca/en/news/news-r ... 55879.aspx

Today, NAV CANADA has cancelled surplus notices to 41 air traffic controllers in area control centres in Gander, Moncton, Montreal and Edmonton. These air traffic controllers will remain on the job to provide vital air navigation services as the aviation industry begins its recovery

Earlier in April, they also decided to cancel the service studies affecting the 7 control towers that were slated for closure as well.

https://www.navcanada.ca/en/news/news-r ... 50268.aspx

NAV CANADA confirmed today that it will maintain air traffic control service to Canadian communities, including Fort McMurray AB, Prince George BC, Regina SK, Saint-Jean QC, Sault Ste. Marie ON, Whitehorse YT and Windsor ON.

Basically, no ATC personnel, be it in towers or ACCs, will lose their jobs, which is excellent news, considering the rebound in air travel that is about to happen.

Thenoflyzone wrote:

Some good news ! NavCan, earlier this week, decided to cancel all planned ATC layoffs at some of their ACCs.

https://www.navcanada.ca/en/news/news-r ... 55879.aspx

Today, NAV CANADA has cancelled surplus notices to 41 air traffic controllers in area control centres in Gander, Moncton, Montreal and Edmonton. These air traffic controllers will remain on the job to provide vital air navigation services as the aviation industry begins its recovery

Earlier in April, they also decided to cancel the service studies affecting the 7 control towers that were slated for closure as well.

https://www.navcanada.ca/en/news/news-r ... 50268.aspx

NAV CANADA confirmed today that it will maintain air traffic control service to Canadian communities, including Fort McMurray AB, Prince George BC, Regina SK, Saint-Jean QC, Sault Ste. Marie ON, Whitehorse YT and Windsor ON.

Basically, no ATC personnel, be it in towers or ACCs, will lose their jobs, which is excellent news, considering the rebound in air travel that is about to happen.

Excellent knews for those employees! Speak as an instructor who goes to Saint Jean often it is amazing to hear it will stay open. That airport definitely helps reduce the already overloaded St.Hubert tower on busy days.

Thenoflyzone wrote:

Some good news ! NavCan, earlier this week, decided to cancel all planned ATC layoffs at some of their ACCs.

https://www.navcanada.ca/en/news/news-r ... 55879.aspx

Today, NAV CANADA has cancelled surplus notices to 41 air traffic controllers in area control centres in Gander, Moncton, Montreal and Edmonton. These air traffic controllers will remain on the job to provide vital air navigation services as the aviation industry begins its recovery

Earlier in April, they also decided to cancel the service studies affecting the 7 control towers that were slated for closure as well.

https://www.navcanada.ca/en/news/news-r ... 50268.aspx

NAV CANADA confirmed today that it will maintain air traffic control service to Canadian communities, including Fort McMurray AB, Prince George BC, Regina SK, Saint-Jean QC, Sault Ste. Marie ON, Whitehorse YT and Windsor ON.

Basically, no ATC personnel, be it in towers or ACCs, will lose their jobs, which is excellent news, considering the rebound in air travel that is about to happen.

That's great news. Every foot on the floor (ie us ATCs) knew that layoffs would lead to disaster. The rebound was always a case of when, not if.

My current center is now staring at a massive staff shortage in around 5 to 7 years as voluntary early pension combined with regular retirements and transfers, and that combined with halted training starts to show its effect. Of course, I guess management hasn't the faintest clue what's coming ca 2025/27. Sigh. I need to leave before then.

I am happy for all, staying on the job! Great to hear!