CBC MARKETPLACE: TRAVEL & RECREATION » AIRPORT SAFETY
Deregulation leaves small and medium sized airports exposed
Broadcast: October 17, 2001 | Reporter: Jim Nunn; Producer: Richard Wright; Researchers: Marlene McArdle, Stephanie Kampf

It's a nightmare. You're flying over Canada. The pilot announces there's an emergency, perhaps a fire onboard. The nearest airport is Sydney, Nova Scotia. He'll try to make an emergency landing.

On the ground at Sydney, the alarm is sounded. But there are no fire fighters at Sydney airport. Officials have to rely on emergency crews from a nearby town.

Sydney airport is one of many sold off by the Canadian government in the cost cutting of the 1990's. Before the airports were put up for sale, the government closed their expensive airport fire departments. As a result many airports have no on-site firefighters. Sydney's not alone. Nearly 100 airports across the country have no on-site firefighters

"If it happened just as it was … landing or taking off, then we don't have that quick response time that people say it's important to have," says Larry MacPherson, the airport's CEO.

Sydney airport CEO Larry MacPherson

Sydney handles 100,000 passengers a year. A hundred transatlantic flights pass overhead every day, and any one of those bigger planes might be forced to land.

Sydney's on-site service ended in 1997. But the firefighting equipment remains at the airport, without anyone to run it. The airport relies on volunteer firefighters at Reserve Mines, about seven kilometres away.

In a Marketplace test, it took the Reserve Mines volunteers about nine minutes to get to the airport. They had to get from their homes to the local fire hall to suit up, before making the trip to the airport. Their response time is three times the international standard for major airports.

"A nine minute response time…puts you in the problem of a fire doubling in heat and size every ten seconds," according to Jim Lindsay, former fire chief at Toronto's Pearson International Airport. "You could get penetration of ... very hot noxious gases inside that aircraft for four minutes before the fire department can even arrive. So at that point it would become an impossible rescue."

Canadian requirements not up to international standards

American rules require on-site firefighting capabilities at any airport where planes with 30 or more seats lands. In Australia, every airport that handles passenger planes must have on-site fire protection. It's the same in Britain.

It used to be that way in Canada, too. Now only our 28 major airports must have on-site firefighters

"Most of the problems we have in the airline industry today stem from two main polices," says Bob Perkins of the Canadian Airline Pilots Association. "One is privatization and deregulation and the other is government downsizing."

Andrew Reddick blames federal government policy. The Fredericton-based researcher for the Public Interest Advocacy Centre has studied the impact of government policies on airline travel for the past two years.

"All airports should be brought up to international standards," Reddick told Marketplace.

"That means there should be an emergency response plan. There should be fire trucks and rescue equipment on-site. There should be staff on-site that are properly trained. There should be government oversight and audits to ensure that they're living up to regulations. And there should be funds to ensure that the airports can meet the standards because these guys are losing money right across the country."

At Fredericton in December 1997, Air Canada Flight 646 from Toronto crashed off the runway and into the trees. In dense fog, it took rescuers almost an hour to locate and reach the plane.

"Fredericton was one of the largest 28 airports in the country and ostensibly they were up to international standards," Reddick said. "They were the best of the bunch… but what we found in this instance was there were some major problems."

After Fredericton, the government did an about face. It now wants to restore on-site fire protection at almost 100 Canadian airports. But it's a lot harder to put back than it was to take out. The new owners of the airports say they can't afford the cost.

This year, Sydney airport's deficit was $100,000. On-site fire and rescue would cost another $250,000 each year.

The people who run the airport say a few years of that and there won't be a Sydney airport.

B.C. town says no to return of firefighting services

Across the country, in Quesnel, B.C., Mayor Steve Wallace says he doesn't want to pay for the government's about-face either. But he goes a step further: no matter who pays, he doesn't want the on-site service back.

When Quesnel took over the airport, they moved the fire truck downtown, about ten minutes away. Wallace says that's close enough.

Andrew Reddick has just completed a two year study of air travel in Canada: "High Hopes and Low Standards"

Quesnel has joined forces with 17 other like-minded B.C. municipalities with small airports. They've hired a lawyer and are ready to fight the government on this. Their major argument is a cost/benefit analysis.

"The likelihood is the expense would be too great to give any type of rationale to offer the service," Wallace says.

As someone who flies into small airports all the time, pilot Bob Perkins finds Wallace's cost benefit math chilling.

"What we are talking about is a very, very rare occurrence. But the consequences of that occurrence are extremely high."

Perkins is proposing a user fee to ensure that there is one level of safety for all airports across the country.

"People have done the calculations that would suggest that for something less than a dollar a ticket you could have full service at virtually every airport that people fly into," Perkins said.

Consumer activist Andrew Reddick believes consumers have already paid too much for bad government policy. He advises to Canadians to make it clear to their MPs and to federal Transport Minister David Collenette that this is not an acceptable situation.

"We're at the point where something has to be done. The system has to be fixed."

NEXT: Survey: Response time at smaller airports »

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