Nathan VanderKlippe
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Nov 01/02) - Buffalo Airways has lost certification from Transport Canada for its school of aviation after what the agency said was a failure to bring its curriculum up to snuff.

Buffalo did not have complete lesson plans and examinations that met the requirements of the company's regulatory standards, said Neil Green, spokesman for Transport Canada.

Certification was yanked on Sept. 17, although the school is still operating and hopes to be re-certified within the next couple of months.

The Buffalo School of Aviation trains people for 24 different jobs in aviation. Transport Canada is concerned with one stream in particular: schooling for aircraft maintenance engineers (AMEs). Buffalo has graduated 12 AMEs since its school was first certified in 1999.

Six people are currently studying in the program.

The de-certification takes on added meaning since the aviation school is included in a water bombing contract between the GNWT and Buffalo Airways. The school is heavily subsidized by the territorial government. The Department of Education, Culture and Employment provides funding of $100,000-a-year, while Aurora College adds another $75,000.

That contract is currently under negotiation, and has drawn fire from other aviation companies in town, who say they should have a chance to bid on it.

The school's decertification comes after Transport Canada inspectors audited the school in September 2001 as part of a national survey following changes to regulations governing flight schools.

On the heels of that inspection, the company submitted two action plans, one in January and another in February of this year.

However, said Green, "When our inspectors did a follow-up audit in August of this year, it was determined that almost all of the corrective actions were only partially complete."

To comply with Transport Canada, the school has to build a separate hangar for its AME students, update its paperwork and buy additional teaching aids. Last week, company owner Joe McBryan purchased a Bell-205 and a Bell-206 helicopter for the school.

He said the company plans to build an 18,040-square-foot hangar for its AME students.

McBryan said he has hired consultants to redraft the school's curriculum. Without Transport Canada's certification, the school cannot credit students with practical training time while they study, nor can it administer Transport Canada exams, although its students can write them elsewhere.

McBryan hopes to have the school re-certified in two months -- and says his students can get practical training credit if the school is approved again before their graduation date. He's personally guaranteeing it.

"I was the one that said, 'Look, if you're worried about your student loans, worried about your school, I will personally underwrite them, I'm that confident,'" he said.

"Just because they're not approved doesn't necessarily mean that they're not a good company," said Green, the Transport Canada spokesman.

Meanwhile, the minister for Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development, said negotiations with Buffalo on the territory's water bomber contract have ground to a halt.

"Things have been put on hold right now, trying to determine how we are going to proceed from here," said Jim Antoine, who did not explain any further.

Other companies have maintained that they should have a chance to bid in a competitive process on the seven-year contract, which is worth upwards of $20 million.

Summit Air owner Jamie Tait questioned the company's viability.

"A $30 million cheque handed to somebody that may not even be operating in five years is a pretty big gift," he said.

But McBryan is having none of it, saying the complaints he has seen in the media are nearly identical to barbs tossed around in 1995, when Buffalo originally won the contract through a competitive process.

"I look at all those people in a sandbox, throwing sand in everybody's eyes ... I sit up in a tree like a raven squawking at them. I could give a s**t what they're saying," he said.

McBryan also defended the company's viability.

"Who is broke in the NWT that gets up and goes to work in the morning?" he said, defending Buffalo's financial stability. "If you're broke up here you're awful, you must be on bad coke."