Government told to follow its own air safety rules

A recent Federal Court of Appeal decision should send a clear message to government to follow its own rules when trying to change airline passenger safety regulations, says Toronto employment lawyer Stephen Moreau.

“We have clear direction from the court that decisions being made by Transport Canada officials have to be governed by safety considerations,” says Moreau, a partner with Cavalluzzo Shilton McIntyre Cornish LLP.

Moreau represented the union that acts for the flight attendants involved in the case, he tells legalmatters.ca.

The court ultimately disagreed with Transport Canada’s conclusion that there was no impact on passenger or crew safety when it allowed the airline to alter its emergency evacuation procedure, reports the Toronto Star.

‘Procedure altered’

“That procedure was altered after the airline requested to fly with one less flight attendant due to an increase in the ratio of passengers to flight attendants,” says Moreau.

Under federal rules at the time, flights originating in Canada were required to have one attendant for every 40 passengers, unless the transport minister granted an exemption.

In 2013, the airline asked to raise the ratio to 1-50 on some of its aircraft, the net effect being a reducion of the number of flight attendants. It also sought permission to change procedures for flight attendants during an emergency evacuation, says the Star.

Moreau said the Flight Attendants’ Manual (FAM) called for flight attendants, during an emergency evacuation, to call out for a passenger to block the aisles. The aim was to give a member of the flight crew an opportunity to reach and deploy the emergency doors without having to fight through a crowd.

Failed tests

The airline failed three separate tests of the new system, according to the Star. Flights crews were supposed to be able to do a “partial evacuation” within 15 seconds.

A Transport Canada inspector was on hand for those tests and he suggested the airline drop the “blocking” order in an effort to save time, says Moreau.

It worked and the crew passed the test.

Transport Canada then asked the airline for a risk assessment to prove that the change wouldn’t compromise safety.

The resulting report said it was unlikely that passengers would block emergency exits during an evacuation.

That’s when CUPE took the government to court. Moreau says the union believed the changes made evacuations less safe and that the government had not taken reasonable steps to justify approving the changes.

In its decision, the court said the airline’s risk assessment was “cursory and provides no indication of how this conclusion was reached.”

It also said the evidence showed that “no reliable testing was conducted to verify the accuracy of the conclusions.”

Assessment not reviewed

The inspector didn’t review the assessment before giving his seal of approval, the judge added.

“Not only did the inspector fail to review [the airline’s] risk assessment,” says the decision, “there is in addition no evidentiary basis to substantiate the assumption that passengers would not likely block a [company] flight attendant who needs to open an emergency exit to evacuate the aircraft. Thus, it is impossible to see how the Inspector could have been satisfied that the proposed amendment to the FAM did not compromise safety. In short, the record reveals that a mandatory safety requirement was abrogated without there being evidence to support the assumption that it was not required.”

Moreau says the decision is good news for passenger safety.

“It imposes on Transport Canada officials a pretty strong obligation to ensure that changes to how an airline operates are done with safety first and foremost in mind,” he says.