FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1985
1985 - 0186.PDF
This route network map does not include the extensive "Atlantic Canada" network which CP acquired as a result of buying EPA and affiliate Air Maritime, which links into CP's route web at Montreal and Toronto its Tokyo route into Beijing. Colussy said it would start such flights straight away if it could get approval for them, but it doesn't seem likely that it will, at least for some time. At present CP flies to Santiago and Buenos Aires via Lima, and if it were to get approval for Sao Paulo and/or Rio de Janeiro, then Lima could become effec tively a mini-hub allowing much better use of aircraft than the carrier can currently achieve. Most of CP's major reorganistion, apart from acquiring EPA, took place or was started in 1983. The airline's expanded operations centre at Vancouver Inter national Airport was completed then, and during 1984 the new engine test cell started operating. The operations centre looks like a huge hangar; in fact it is one, but not only that. In 1976 CP's adminis trative staff, which had been split between downtown offices and the operations building, all became based at the ops centre. CP's worldwide staff now numbers about 7,200, nearly 1,600 fewer than at the end of 1981. By the end of 1983 the number of revenue ton miles produced annually by each employee stood at 115,000, compared with 97,500 RTMs for 1979; and almost all that improvement had come about during 1983. CP has worked hard over the last two years at strengthening its links with the travel trade. During 1983 it linked into American's Sabre and United's Apollo reservations systems, thus presenting its services directly to 13,000 travel agencies in the USA. Last year it introduced its own Pegasus 2000, a CP-developed system whereby any travel agent with his own IBM personal computer has direct access to CP's mainframe reservations computer through which flights, hotels, and car rentals can be booked. On the cargo front, since May 1983, CP's agents worldwide have been able to access the airline's new "C4" freight computer to book space and reduce paperwork. New western spokes Another 1983 move was to arrange formally with regional operator Air BC, whose HQ is also at Vancouver Inter national, to have the small airline feed CP's main hub with schedules that tallied. The nub of the agreement is that Air BC, with its DHC Dash 7s, operates eight daily services between Victoria (on Vancouver Island) to Vancouver Inter national's main terminal from where CP flights depart. CP used to operate three 737s a day on that service, but now sched ules only a single peak-hour 737 daily Monday-Friday, leaving Air BC to do the rest. New eastern spokes If CP Air was serious about being able to compete fully with Air Canada when deregulation comes it had to extend its domestic network eastward beyond Montreal. At first glance it looks as if the acquisition of Eastern Provincial Airways and its affiliate Air Maritime was a perfect answer to this need. It gave CP an Atlantic Canada network hubbed at Halifax, Nova Scotia, and the fleet and infrastructure already set up. But EPA had not been a happy airline for some time when CP signed the contract in October last year. CP simply told EPA to carry on business as usual, with the status of an autonomous unit, because much dovetailing of schedules had taken place before the purchase. During 1982 EPA had achieved a net profit of $877,000 on revenues of $94 million, but the following year, due to some long and bitter industrial disputes, it lost nearly $3 million, and losses are anticipated in 1984's results. The disputes had continued into last year. EPA's previous owner had been the Newfoundland Capital Corporation Ltd (NCC), a group involved in surface and sea transport, hotels and finance, as well as EPA and AM. President and chief executive officer of both NCC and of the airlines themselves was Harry Steele, a man with an image of the traditional Atlantic Canadian trader: straight forward, tough, and without any subtlety. CP has just removed him from his presi dent's seat; but with a degree of subtlety and some deference to his experience in the Atlantic Canada marketplace has gived him chairmanship of the EPA Board. As mentioned earlier, Sheldon Stoilen, Colussy's right-hand man, has taken over EPA's presidency, and he is to run the airline as an autonomous unit linking into CP's network at Montreal and Toronto. EPA runs three relatively low-time 737s, and three old ones on which CP is to carry out major refits before the end of this year. AM flies four old British Aerospace748-2As, and leases a -2B from BAe. The old 748s have, on the company's admission, a very poor schedule time keeping record because of unreliability, and EPA is taking a preliminary look at replacements. One of the prime deciding factors, given AM's job of linking small communities, appears to be that the aircraft should not have more than 40 seats "because then you need two stew ardesses instead of one". The carrier had something of a Newfoundlander image by virtue of the fact that its headquarters and major maintenance unit were at Gander. Much to the dismay of the Gander community, by the end of this year the last vestiges of EPA's administration and engineering will have moved to Halifax, and Gander will just be one of the points on the airline's network. Now the airline is striving for an image as "Atlantic Canada's Airline", intending that the people of eastern Canada, "particularly Haligonians" (the people of Halifax) will think automatically of Eastern Provincial when they want to fly. Halifax-Toronto is the eighth busiest route in Canada; Air Canada flies it too, and has more move ments on that route at the moment than EPA does. EPA's employees are 12 per cent more productive than CP's but the unit cost of an airline is twice that of the average Atlantic Canadian, the airline maintains. It was in trying to do something about the latter, and to get more flexibility and productivity out of EPA's employees, that Harry Steele ran into trouble with his workers—particularly the Machinists' union and the pilots' union. Although the disputes are officially over, considerable bitterness remains among the whole workforce, the resent ment itself affecting productivity. Steele had partially broken the pilot's strike by hiring non-union aircrew and accelerating their seniority. The Canadian Labour Relations Board accused Steele of union- bashing, and on several occasions ruled in the unions' favour. Steele ignored the rulings. A pilots' union appeal to the Federal Appeals Court gained a ruling that the airline was negotiating in bad faith, but Steele sidestepped again. So with EPA, CP Air has got a poten tially profitable airline in its own right, with some of the re-organisational spade- work toward the deregulation era already done. It has also got a trans-Canada domestic network. But problems remain with old aeroplanes and employee morale in the east. n 26 FLIGHT International, 19 January 1985
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
