ATAC President and CEO John McKenna wishes to inform the ATAC Membership that Vice President Darren Buss has recently announced that he will be leaving ATAC in order to accept a new challenge at Transport Canada. 

Darren joined ATAC almost three years ago and in that relatively short time has managed to make a significant contribution to the work ATAC does, particularly in the area of Flight Training. He distinguished himself by the high quality of his work and will leave a lasting imprint on ATAC’s effort to serve its members, namely by his presentation to the House of Commons’ Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in support of flight training in Canada, the founding of the National Flight Training Study in cooperation with Seneca College, and initiating the tradition of “InfoShare” at our annual conferences where flight schools can confidentially share safety-related experiences and best practices with their peers. Most recently, as COVID-19 brought our industry to a standstill, Darren was responsible for a manual of suggested policies and procedures for flight training during the pandemic that received widespread adoption and praise from both flight schools and regulators. He was also responsible for the important task of modernizing our web site, which will be released in the coming weeks. 

ATAC respects Darren’s decision to accept a new challenge and we wish him the very best success in his new endeavor. Darren’s last day at ATAC will be on Friday, September 18.

Air North, Yukon’s Airline Named Best Airline in Canada by Tripadvisor

WHITEHORSE, YT - 28 July 2020 Tripadvisor has named Air North, Yukon’s Airline the Travellers’ Choice Best Airline in Canada 2020, as well as the Travellers’ Choice Specialty Airline in North America 2020.

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Dear Mr. Struthers,

First of all, thank you to you and your team for taking the time to meet with ATAC and some of its Board members on Monday, June 29th, 2020. The insight you provided with regards to the background leading up to the issuance of the subject Notice was much appreciated. However, as you can appreciate the extremely large overall fee increase proposed is of great concern to our industry. This would be the case at any time but during the COVID-19 Pandemic and the unprecedented adverse impact it is having on our Canadian commercial aviation industry, this is truly a situation that requires a much different approach than that proposed.

We understand that you have taken advantage of the Government of Canada (GoC) financial assistance through the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS) program. You have also advised that the GoC is unwilling to provide further necessary financial support beyond CEWS to help NAV CANADA weather this extreme situation. Given the essential infrastructure that NAV CANADA provides to Canada and indeed a large portion of the world, we find this totally unacceptable. This dire situation is made even worse when it is realized that not all users of NAV CANADA services are paying their fair share or in fact anything towards the costs of providing this essential service. This is particularly galling when it is realized that state and military aircraft are included within this group that is not financially supporting or paying their costs to the Canadian Air Navigation System.

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