The following letter sent to Transport Canada
requests a user-friendly and less expensive CFS.
The Aero Club of B.C. is the oldest surviving flying club in the British Empire
and boasts 63 members, almost all of them pilots and owners of aircraft. At one
of the General Meetings it was regularly moved and seconded that we send you a
letter with suggestions as outlined below. This letter will also be sent to the
Canadian Owners and Pilots Association in the hope that they will endorse it.
The Canadian Flight Supplement is a book that contains very important
information and it is essential that it should be in every pilot’s possession.
The information contained in these books requires constant updating and are for
this reason printed every 56 days. The issuers of the CFS probably think that
the cost of these books is a bargain. In General Aviation the books are not
thought of as a bargain. The proof of this is that very few General Aviation
pilots have a current CFS. You, as the producers of this publication, must be
interested in seeing that this information gets into many more GA pilot’s hands
than is currently the case. It is to that end that we would like to offer a few
suggestions that may help to make this come about.
1. Divide the country in to two regions, Eastern and Western Canada or better
still, in to three regions, Eastern, Central and Western Canada. Produce books
for each region. This would make the books for more manageable in the cabin of a
small aircraft. The pilots could purchase one or all of the books depending on
their requirements.
2. Produce the booklets in loose-leaf form similar to the AIP to make the
booklet more user friendly in the cabin. Include updates for a year in the
purchase price. Then offer update subscriptions on an annual basis.
3. Every effort must be made to make the CFS more affordable to its customers.
We expect the above suggestions would result in directing essential information
to more pilots which is of the utmost importance to all of us, with less waste
of valuable resources. The latter an environmentally responsible thing to do.
James T. Zeilstra, V.P. Aero Club of B.C.
COPA response to CFS letter
Thank you for your letter concerning changes to the Canada Flight Supplement.
As you may know, Nav Canada is now responsible for the CFS, including its
distribution. It is produced under contract by NRCAN and there are others,
including DND and Transport Canada, who have a say in its form, and content.
COPA has been actively seeking an alternative to the CFS for some time now. Your
suggestion that it be split into east, west and central editions as well as
formatted in a ring binder like the AIP have all been investigated.
Unfortunately, it appears that this would not decrease the cost because of the
relatively small volume of sales that may ensue for each edition. COPA has made
the argument that increased sales may more than make up for the lower volume of
individuals editions, but this has not been accepted as of yet.
COPA has also pushed for changing the information in the CFS to make it more
useful. For example, we want landing, parking and other fee information in the
CFS, which is the only practical method available for informing pilots of fees.
In fact, we are pursuing a precedent-setting case in which we will try to
convince a judge that it is unfair to charge fees without advertising them where
they can readily be seen. And the CFS is the only reasonable place to find such
information, in our opinion.
We have also pushed for adding information such as airport area services, hotels
and restaurants to make the CFS more useful as a flight planning tool.
We have even suggested that advertising be permitting in order to defray the
costs and hence the price. We have also pushed for putting the CFS on the web so
that pilots can download all or any of the CFS on a pay-as-you-go basis.
I am happy to report that at a recent meeting with Nav Canada, they agreed to
form a working group of industry participants and government agencies involved
to explore the options and find an affordable solution. We will stay on top of
this one in order to improve information and reduce costs for pilots.
Kevin Psutka COPA President/CEO