Jason Unrau
Northern News Services
Wednesday, February 7, 2007

YELLOWKNIFE - Recent closures of weather centres at Yellowknife airport and Norman Wells airport have raised concerns among Northern aviators, who are now getting their weather reports from a NAV Canada operation 3,000 kilometres away in North Bay, Ont.

Also, in May 2006, NAV Canada cancelled its plans to establish a flight information centre in Yellowknife.

"To deprive us of the basic reliable weather is ludicrous, really," said medevac pilot William Laserich, who is based out of Cambridge Bay. "There's just no substitute for an observer (at Yellowknife airport) where our medevacs land. Weather info now has to travel 3,000 kilometres down there to North Bay where I have to retrieve it."

Laserich, who has been flying in the North for a half-century, blames the problem on a "peeing match" between the Government of the Northwest Territories and NAV Canada over the price of space at the airport.

"I don't care if those guys don't come to consensus but we are the victims, we lose our weather service... Yellowknife is supposed to be booming and yet we're getting less," he said.

It's a view Don Douglas, vice-president of the Northern Air Transportation Association, shares.

"The thing that annoyed me is NAV Canada knows they're supposed to consult before making a decision like this," said Douglas.

"Now this is just my opinion but I believe NAV Canada was having an argument with the GNWT over the cost of space. They got annoyed and pulled out."

In July 2006, then Transportation Minister Michael McLeod wrote to NAV Canada president John Crichton urging him to reverse the decision to cancel a flight information centre for Yellowknife, calling

the move "improper."

Last week, Bob Kelly, manager of public affairs and communication for the Department of Transportation, said Crichton had replied to McLeod's letter, writing that "after consultation" NAV Canada's decision to centralize the flight information centre service in North Bay "was not a great concern" among Northern carriers.

NAV Canada spokesperson Ron Singer confirmed Kelly's report and said the "same level" of services were available at Yellowknife airport. Weather conditions are monitored from the site and then transferred to North Bay's flight information centre where they can be accessed.

"There's been no change to information we're providing pilots," said Singer. "The airport has a control tower 24 hours a day, a flight service station and monitoring that takes hourly weather readings... the type of services that were transferred are not location-dependent."

However, both Douglas and Laserich said NAV Canada's "consultation" was held during the busy summer and few people attended or were even aware the meeting took place.

For Laserich, who relies on up-to-the-minute weather for his medevac flights, being able to access weather information from his destination is a safety issue.

"In a nutshell, we need weather info, period," he said. "We are in the medevac field and the patients (from other NWT communities) do go to Yellowknife, and that's where we need the weather information from."

Laserich added that while North Bay is doing a good job handling the new workload, with poor weather conditions playing a factor in the majority of air accidents in the NWT, it makes no sense to go without local weather services for pilots.

Yellowknife airport is among the 10 busiest airports in the country, handling 66,137 takeoffs and landings in 2006.