Yellowknife (Nov 15/04) - The aviation industry has a one-year reprieve on proposed regulations it says will hurt flying in the North.

Federal Transportation Minister Jean LaPierre announced the exemption Wednesday after a meeting with territorial minister Michael McLeod, Minister of State for Northern Development Ethel Blondin-Andrew and aviators in Yellowknife.

"It's all very well to put regulations in place in Ottawa, but we have to make sure these regulations make sense on the ground," said Lapierre.

The announcement comes on the heels of an Oct. 20 meeting between 16 Transport Canada representatives and 55 aviators in Yellowknife.

The proposed changes include having to extend runways for turbo-propelled planes, changes to external load carrying ability, as well as changes to when approach bans are put in place.

In the south, Transport Canada's regulatory changes are expected to occur over the next two to four months.

The runway extension portion of the regulations won't be in effect until 2010.

In the North, a dozen airstrips could be affected.

"We are working to find an acceptable level of safety in a manner other than extending runways," said Don Douglas, executive director for the Northern Air Transportation Association (NATA).

Douglas said he believes the industry made headway with federal representatives during the Oct. 20 meeting on a potential lowering of the threshold height on pilots' approaches.

"In the North, with blowing snow, the observer on the ground might be in the middle of bad weather and he can't see, but that has no relationship to what a pilot can see in a cockpit," said Douglas.

He said the group of aviators explained to Transport Canada that putting the approach bans at a 1,200-feet visual limit would make servicing mines and communities more difficult.

On external loads, Douglas said strapping two canoes on to a floatplane is a practice that has been around for at least 30 years.

"We don't do that without a lot of thought. You can put two canoes together and you get better lift than (with) one canoe.

"Someone in Ottawa figures that's pretty dangerous and we better put a stop to that. And for some of our small operators it was almost going to put them out of business.

"There have been some accidents down south. An operator didn't know what he was doing, overloaded his plane and had an accident," Douglas said.

Great Slave MLA Bill Braden raised the aviators' concerns during the NWT Tourism conference in Yellowknife on Nov. 6.

If the approach ban regulations Transport Canada is putting in place hold, it could cost the territorial government millions, "especially in terms of servicing the communities and medevacs," Braden said.

Lucy Vignola, a spokesperson for the federal agency, said there are no plans to extend Northern airstrips and downplayed the proposed amendments.

"There are usually some costs involved with regulatory amendments and people will have a chance to comment on them," she said.