Thorunn Howatt
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Nov 13/02) - Talk about expansion. Four years ago a Yellowknife company took advantage of air traffic privatization. Now it has skyrocketed from a staff of six to 70 and spread its wings across the country.

ATS Services' Sam Tibbet shows off an instrument used to measure weather changes. Aviators rely on ATS for air traffic control services. - Thorunn Howatt/NNSL photo

"It's grown hundreds of per cent," said ATS co-owner Cameron Mason, who moved to Ottawa in the summer.

The company specializes in management and training of aviation communications and weather -- that's lower-level air traffic control services.

ATS started with one operational contract in 1999 in Fort Smith. After that, NavCanada asked the company to train some people in Eastern Canada.

"Then we started picking up more and more stations," said Mason. He expects the company to double in size within three months.

Now ATS has contracts throughout the Northwest Territories and Southern Canada.

Mason started out as manager for aviation for the Government of the Northwest Territories. That's when aviation was federally run by Transport Canada. But the federal government decided to privatize air traffic control and formed NavCanada -- an arms-length-to-government organization.

"The writing was on the wall. Everyone was privatizing. We thought this would be an ideal time to get into the private sector," said Mason. Now ATS works for community airports, airport authorities and government agencies.

And business is booming.

"In the North we manage the community aerodrome radio stations and in the south we've been getting mostly into the weather stations that are co-located at the airports," said Mason. There are about 30 ATS-operated stations in the North. In April the company picked up three B.C. contracts then added another three in Eastern Canada.

Last summer ATS held a six-month contract with BHP Billiton's Ekati mine. It hopes to get that work again next spring.

Levels of service

Despite rapid technological advances, the most important link a pilot has with the ground is the air traffic service operator.

When it comes to air traffic control, there are levels of services: Approach Unicom used at Ekati Mine is low; the next level is community aerodrome radio stations; then there are flight service stations.

NavCanada operates the highest level, air traffic control.

"But I expect at some point that the air traffic control side will privatize in Canada. It has in the States," said Mason.

People interested in air traffic control training can take a course at Aurora College in Fort Smith. But if the college is inaccessible to the client, as it was for a crew in Newfoundland, then ATS will go on-site to train.

"It is difficult taking in the equipment and setting up a training program in the community but it is good for the people that we train," said Mason, adding that six people were trained during the Newfoundland project. About 20 people have been trained since the ATS program's inception.

Courses are held in airport terminal buildings so operational equipment can be used. "We have our own communication system that we use as well."

The ATS head office is in Yellowknife but a lot of its new southern business is done through a regional office in Ottawa.