Canadian Expat in China
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04/04/08
New terminal of Tianjin Binhai Airport to open
By People’s Daily Online
March 28, 2008
The new terminal of Tianjin Binhai International Airport is scheduled to open on April 28, 2008. By then, all the passenger flights of more than ten airline companies will be transferred to the new terminal.
The new terminal is located to the east of the runway. The first floor of the terminal serves as an arrival lounge and the second floor is reserved for departures.
The new terminal has 60 counters and 17 security check passages.
Once the new terminal is put into operation, the airport will be separated into two sections with the runway as the divider. To the east is an area for passenger transportation, and to the west is an area for cargo.
03/25/08
Asia Pacific airline beckons Milton in life after ACE
Scott Deveau, Financial Post
Published: Monday, March 24, 2008
Financial Post
ACE Aviation Holdings Inc. boss Robert Milton is apparently looking into his past to figure out what to do with his future.
Mr. Milton, who was born in Boston but raised in Singapore, revealed yesterday he is one of the founding shareholders of Aero Ventures Sdn Bhd, an Asian Pacific holding company that owns 48% of the Malaysian long-haul, low-cost carrier AirAsia X Sdn Bhd.
“My involvement with AirAsia X has provided me with the exciting opportunity to participate in the newest and most promising airline business model,” Mr. Milton said in a statement from Kuala Lumpur, where he announced his “minor interest” in the holding company.
AirAsia X is a long-haul affiliate of Kuala Lumpur-based regional carrier AirAsia. While AirAsia has offered short-haul, no-frills flights in the region since the 1990s, AirAsia X is focused on expanding the model to international destinations on flights between four and eight hours. It aims eventually to connect passengers from Australia through Kuala Lumpur onward to Europe on its fleet of Airbus A330s, with London’s Stansted airport in its immediate sights.
Currently AirAsia X flies from Kuala Lumpur to the Gold Coast, Australia and Hangzhou, China, since it took to the skies last November. It aims to add such places as Moscow, Dubai and Osaka, Japan.
While low-cost carriers have become entrenched in North America and Europe, they have yet to really take flight in the Asia Pacific region, according to Richard Aboulafia, an industry analyst with the Teal Group in Fairfax, Va. While most of the low-cost alternatives there, like Jetstar Asia Airways and Tiger Airways, have focused on transcontinental routes, AirAsia X is one of the first to extend the model to international routes, he added, making it a “pioneer” in the East.
Certainly demand is there. The total number of passengers in the Asia Pacific market is expected to surpass that of the U.S. domestic industry within the next five years, making it the largest individual market for air travel, according to the International Air Transport Association.
“AirAsia X is one of the more aggressive experiments,” Mr. Aboulafia said. “It’s like WestJet or JetBlue.”
Mr. Milton joins the head of AirAsia, Malaysian entrepreneur Tony Fernandes, and a handful of other AirAsian executives and Malaysian investors, in forging Aero Ventures.
In addition to the holding company, AirAsia X has attracted such investors as Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, which owns 20% of the airline.
Mr. Milton’s investment in the airline should be a major boost to its credibility. His experiment with ACE, the parent of Air Canada, has been lauded by industry officials since it was formed in 2004 when the airline emerged from bankruptcy protection.
After whittling down ACE’s interest in Air Canada, its Jazz regional carrier, its Aeroplan frequent-flyer program and its ACTS maintenance unit, the holding company has managed to return billions of dollars in proceeds to its shareholders.
Mr. Milton has said he hopes to completely unwind ACE in the first half of this year and he told the Financial Post last summer he was considering going into private-equity investing. He has since moved his family from Montreal to London.
“I believe AirAsia X has great potential as the first truly low-cost long-haul carrier in a region which will see significant future traffic growth - an area of the world to which I also happen to have strong personal ties,” Mr. Milton said yesterday.
03/23/08
Foreign students fill skies; communication, airspace woes grow
Posted on Sat, Mar. 22, 2008
By KEN KAYE
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
On any given day, the skies over South Florida are filled with student pilots from India, China and other foreign lands learning the rudiments of flight. Most hope to become professional pilots.
Their growing numbers have been a boon to the local economy as well as to flight schools that specialize in training foreign pilots. One of those, Dean International in Miami, has become so busy that it bought 32 extra training planes and hired 23 additional instructors. “They have a big economic impact on this area,” Robert Dean, the school’s owner, said of the foreign students. “Every single one of them goes out and buys a laptop. They spend money in restaurants and to occupy housing.”
Yet, the students, who now number in the hundreds each year, also have put a strain on South Florida’s airspace, which already is bustling with airline and corporate planes, authorities said.
They are a particular headache for air traffic controllers, who must communicate with a large number of inexperienced fliers who don’t always understand complex or rapid-fire instructions in American-accented English.
“You have to speak slower. You can’t condense transmissions,” said Jim Marinitti of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association in Miami. “They frequently ask controllers to repeat instructions.”
And, simply by virtue of the fact that they add to the congestion in the sky, other pilots must keep a sharper lookout. In December, a student pilot from India and another plane collided in the air, killing both pilots. The accident is still under investigation.
The students are sure to keep coming, and in ever greater numbers.
Because of furious growth in civil aviation in Asia, notably in India and China, combined with the decline of the U.S. dollar, the number of foreigners learning to fly in South Florida has exploded, with more than 500 arriving in the past year alone.
Many have come on two-year visas, enduring tough background checks implemented since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Specifically, officials from both the U.S. Transportation Security Administration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement examine every foreign national applying to take flight training, TSA spokeswoman Sari Koshetz said.
“These checks ensure that individuals that may pose a threat to aviation do not receive flight training, preventing them from obtaining Federal Aviation Administration certificates,” she said.
Florida flight schools, in particular, are careful to review each aspiring pilot, the school owners say, since the state was a training ground for many of the 9-11 hijackers.
“They can’t start training until they’re approved and all documents are in place,” said Terry Fensome, owner of Pelican Airways Flight Training Center at North Perry Airport in Pembroke Pines.
With students’ time here limited, they undertake a demanding training regimen, as South Florida’s year-round good weather allows them to take accelerated courses. Most will pay more than $30,000 to earn their commercial licenses and obtain the skills to fly in poor visibility conditions and in larger planes.
Then comes the reward. After their training is done, aviation analysts say, the graduates are virtually certain of landing a high-paying job because many Asian airlines and corporations are buying hundreds of new planes and need pilots.
According to aviation authorities in India, that country has fewer than 3,000 pilots now - yet will need more than 15,000 during the next two decades. The current shortage is so severe that Air India last year turned to the Indian Air Force to supply it with experienced pilots. Other airlines were forced to hire foreigners.
Pan Am International Flight Academy at Miami International Airport is currently training about 200 students from India. After arriving with no flying experience, they learn to handle jet simulators within six months.
Judi Blas, an academy spokeswoman, said one reason so many students come to South Florida is India lacks flight schools.
Kemper Aviation flight school, based in Lantana, markets directly in India and has a section on its Web site geared to appeal to Indian students. As a result, it has become one of the most popular flight schools in South Florida for Indian students.
Two of Kemper’s Indian students died in recent flight accidents. On Dec. 8, Cleon Alvares, 25, of Mumbai, India, was flying solo in a small Cessna trainer when it collided with a twin-engine Piper flown by Harry Duckworth, 56, of Waverly, Pa. Both men were killed. The accident occurred in a busy flight training area over the Everglades near the Broward-Palm Beach county line.
On Oct. 27, Arjun Chhikara, 18, and his flight instructor from Kemper Aviation, Anders Selberg, 46, were killed when their single-engine Piper Archer had engine problems and crashed on a golf course near Boynton Beach. A third occupant, also a student pilot from India, survived.
The fact that Alvares and Chhikara were foreign students was “only a coincidence and played no factor in the outcome,” said Jeff Rozelle, Kemper’s owner and chief pilot. According to the National Transportation Safety Board, the investigations into both accidents are still in the preliminary phase.
Before foreigners can enroll in a U.S. flight school, they must obtain a visa, generally allowing them a two- to five-year visit, and they must speak English fluently, Rozelle said. “Most of the students speak very good English, although many have accents,” he said. “The Indian students speak ‘Queen’s English,’ primarily from their history of India being a British colony.”
Marinitti said the problem is many foreign student pilots cannot understand instructions from controllers unless they are provided in slow, easy terms - and that, in turn, can clog the airwaves.
“If you give them two or three things in one transmission, and they don’t get it, you find yourself repeating yourself,” he said. “It does slow down the process a lot. But it’s one of the things you get used to down here.”
When the Indian flight students leave South Florida, they generally have amassed 275 hours of flying time, Dean said. That is enough to get them hired to fly jetliners in India, though the airlines then require additional training. In comparison, most U.S. airlines require at least 500 hours for prospective pilots but prefer considerably more.
Sharad Mangal, of Delhi, is one of the many Indian students who now fly through South Florida skies, yearning to work for an airline.
“I just want to fly,” said Mangal, 21, who is taking lessons in a two-seat, single-engine Cessna 152 at Pelican Airways. “It’s beating gravity and going against nature.”
Okay Airways shifts focus to regional market
Monday March 17, 2008
ATW Daily News
by Katie Cantle
After suffering from continuous setbacks on its trunk routes, Tianjin-based Okay Airways will shift its focus to the regional market when it takes delivery of its first MA60 turboprop this month, according to Chairman Liu Jieyin.
Its second MA60 is expected to be introduced in April. Last summer, Okay signed an aircraft lease agreement with AVIC I for 10 MA60s (ATWOnline, July 6, 2007). It currently operates five 737s to 22 domestic destinations.
Okay will begin by trying to capture regional fliers in northeastern and northern China before expanding its catchment area to the northwest and central part of the country. Liu said it has conducted market research for airports in Harbin, Shenyang, Tianjin and Shijiazhuang.
“There are twelve empty airports around Harbin, such as Heihe Airport, Mudanjiang Airport, etc., whose geographical distances are between 300 and 600 km., which are the airports we are going to operate in,” he explained. Okay is applying to CAAC for six new regional routes, which he noted will connect with its existing trunk network.
The Chinese regional market remains in its “breeding phase,” as the number of regional aircraft operated by Chinese airlines is just 77 and three main regional carriers–China Express Air, Grand Xinhua Express and Kunpeng Airlines–operate at a loss.
Critics question China's handling of alleged terror plot
By Simon Montlake
The Christian Science Monitor
from the March 12, 2008 edition
Security experts question whether claims about Friday’s domestic airliner incident amount to state propaganda to bolster a pre-Olympics crackdown.
Since Chinese authorities arrested two airline passengers for allegedly plotting to blow up a domestic flight, some analysts and activists are casting doubt on the state’s claim that it had thwarted a pre-Olympics terrorist plot.
The passengers were reportedly arrested after flammable material was found in the airplane’s toilet last Friday. The flight originated in western China, a region where pro-independence Uighur rebels are believed to operate, and was bound for Beijing, the host city for this summer’s Olympics.
Few details have emerged of the incident, or about why the plane was allowed to continue to Beijing after an emergency landing in the western city of Lanzhou. Questions have also been raised over separate claims that militants in the little-known East Turkmenistan Islamic Movement, a UN-designated terrorist group, are plotting to disrupt the Olympics. Exiled Uighur activists condemned the reports as “falsified” terror plots designed to discredit their cause.
Airport security has been tightened at Urumqi in Xinjiang, the origin of the China Southern Airlines flight, reports the Associated Press. Chinese media, citing security sources, have reported that a young Uighur woman was among those detained. The head of civil aviation said the crew acted after passengers were found with a “suspicious liquid.”
The BBC reports that Xinjiang’s governor accused the suspects of “an attempt to crash the plane” and said the crew’s response had averted “an air disaster.”
“Who the people involved in the incident were, where they were from, what their aim was and what their background was, we are now investigating,” he said.
On Monday, a US-based Uighur activist accused Beijing of fabricating terror plots to justify further repression of Uighur communities, reports Al Jazeera. The head of the Uighur American Association, Rebiya Kadeer, said the latest incident was a cover for a political crackdown in Xinjiang. Ms. Kadeer asked why the detained suspects from the aircraft weren’t paraded before the cameras.
“It seems that the Chinese government has one goal, which is to create this scenario of terrorism, and produce a terrorist action itself so that it can blame the Uighur people,” [Kadeer] said.
The oil-rich region of Western China has around 8 million Uighurs, Muslims with ethnic, linguistic, and cultural ties to central Asia. Many resent the Han Chinese majority and restrictions on religious and cultural expressions. Sporadic antigovernment violence flared in the 1990s, but few incidents have been reported in recent years.
News of the alleged attack emerged during China’s annual legislative meeting in Beijing. In addition to the apparent aircraft attack, Wang Lequan, a Communist Party leader, saidpolice had shot dead two members of a “terrorist gang” and arrested 15 others during a raid in January in Xinjiang, Reuters reports. He said the gang was been plotting to “damage the Beijing Olympics.” In January 2007, Chinese forces killed 18 alleged terrorists in Xinjiang, during what authorities said was a raid on a training camp in the mountains.
So far, Chinese media downplayed the story, the Daily Telegraph in London reported. No mention of the terror plot was carried Monday in the People’s Daily, the official party mouthpiece, or by the Chinese-language service of Xinhua, the state-run news agency. Xinhua’s English-language report, issued Sunday after Mr. Wang and Mr. Bekri revealed the threats, was later removed from its website.
The Los Angeles Times reports that the alleged aircraft plot followed a hostage-taking last week in the popular tourist destination of Xian. A Chinese man held 10 Australian travel agents hostage on a bus for three hours before being shot dead by a police sniper. No motive was disclosed and the incident added to China’s focus on security.
Security experts said China represents an obvious target for extremists given the high-profile nature of the Olympics and promised attendance by various heads of state, including President Bush. But Beijing also may have an interest in linking various plots to the Olympics to increase public support for a broad crackdown, […] foreign policy experts said.
“It’s not a surprise that somehow terrorism would show its head at the Olympics, but it strikes me as awfully early,” said Ed Turzanski, senior fellow with the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia.
“The Olympics are a high-risk venture,” he added. “But I also wouldn’t put it past them to use the threat of terrorism to clean up problems they feel they have internally and to get people off their backs, such as human rights groups.”
The apparent lax response of Chinese security officials to the incident has puzzled experts, Time magazine reports. Some have speculated that Xinjiang officials wanted to get publicity during the annual legislature, when intraparty competition for leadership attention is fierce. The foiled plots could help to burnish their antiterrorist credentials. But the security clearance given for the flight to continue to Beijing after the suspects were detained in Lanzhou was at odds with the seriousness of the reported plot, said Steven Tsang, a professor at Oxford University.
“This is more like an air rage incident in which you land and get rid of the troublesome passengers and then continue on to your destination. There’s no way any anti-terrorism police would have released the plane and passengers to fly on without extensive interviews of the passengers, forensic examination of the plane and so on.”
Blogger mutantpalm says that the crew may have overreacted to a false alarm. But China’s fettered media are unlikely to dig deeper into reported arrests or ask why so few details are available of recent terror incidents in Xinjiang.
Given the recent wave of Chinese media reports about being vigilant in the face of Xinjiang terrorism in the run-up to the Olympics, its easy enough to imagine that a paranoid flight attendant on a flight from Urumqi might mistake hand cream left in the toilet for a bomb.
China is taking extraordinary measures to prevent any disturbances during the Olympics, including the recruitment of over 600,000 “security volunteers,” says The Washington Post. An additional 90,000 police and thousands of military and border security personnel will be deployed. Police are also cracking down on domestic political activists and warily watching overseas pressure groups for any sign of dissent, such as the unfurling of banners protesting China’s role in the Darfur crisis.
China has not detailed the exact costs of its security operations, but state media reports last year carried early estimates of about $300 million, a fraction of the $1.8 billion spent in Athens in 2004, the first post-Sept. 11 Summer Olympics. The cost in Beijing, where security forces receive much lower pay, is expected to rise.
03/17/08
Etihad launches global pilot cadet scheme
By Murdo Morrison
Flight Global
14/03/08
Abu Dhabi’s Etihad is launching a worldwide cadet scheme for aspiring first officers as fast-growing airlines in the Middle East and Asia battle to recruit enough pilots.
It will complement Etihad’s existing cadet programme for UAE nationals, which started last year as part of a campaign to convince more locals to train as pilots with the flag carrier.
Although global demand means the pool of experienced first officers is rapidly draining, this is believed to be one of the first times a major carrier has promoted a scheme to train and offer jobs to foreign youngsters with no flying experience.
Etihad plans to launch its first course around June, with a group of 12 would-be pilots. Two further intakes of 12 will follow later in the year. The trainees - school-leavers or college graduates - will move to Abu Dhabi where they will do around 18 months of ab initio training at Horizon Flight Academy, followed by several months of instruction and line-flying under supervision as second officers. They will pay back their fees over eight years as bonded pilots.
The airline, which is expecting a “massive response” to its first advertisements, is looking for “people with a passion who are committed to being a pilot as a long-term career", says Etihad’s executive vice-president operations Richard Hill. “We will be selecting from the top percentile of applicants - the cream of the crop,” he adds.
A total of 48 students will join the separate scheme for UAE nationals in the first year. The airline is keeping the two groups apart initially because of different skills sets and competence in English, but they will be integrated as soon as they begin their flying careers. “We want to make sure there is no divisiveness,” says Hill.
Etihad has a fleet of 37 aircraft and will take delivery of 16 more by 2011, including seven Airbus A330s and four A320s Dubai-based rival Emirates says it has no plans to launch a similar scheme, although, like Etihad, it runs a cadet programme for nationals.* Flight International will be covering Etihad’s plans in detail in our Careers in the Middle East supplement with our 8 April issue.
Please stand by while we find a pilot
By Tess van Straaten - for Business Edge
Published: 03/07/2008 - Vol. 8, No. 5
In our skies and on our roads, Canada’s facing its next transportation crisis - a shortage of experienced pilots and professional truck drivers.
The labour crisis in the trucking industry has been building for the better part of the last decade, but the skills shortage in aviation is just beginning.
“It’s having a large impact on a global scale, because it’s resulted in shifting pilots between countries,” says Marc-David Seidel, an aviation expert and associate professor at the University of British Columbia.
“You have emerging markets in Asia - China and India are the ones we’re hearing a lot about - and the Middle East all actively recruiting and taking Canadian pilots.”
That’s what happened to Capt. Brian Boucher, a veteran pilot who logged 29 years with Air Canada before disembarking for another carrier. Boucher is now flying for India’s Kingfisher Airlines and commutes to its New York City base for his shifts.
“All these airlines overseas now are starting to create bases here in North America and there’s no doubt more (Canadian) pilots will start flying for them,” Boucher says. “The pay’s better and the quality of life is better.”
Factor in large-scale retirements as Baby Boomer pilots reach age 60, the mandatory retirement age at most carriers, and insiders agree there’s turbulence ahead for the industry.
“I don’t know if it’s the perfect storm,” says Capt. Andy Wilson, president of the Air Canada Pilots Association (ACPA). “But I would say at some point, certainly during the last round of bankruptcy protection in North America, pilots were seen as a cost item. And as the shortage builds, airlines will have to fight to retain pilots, because you need pilots to fly planes.”
The world’s largest airline, American Airlines, didn’t have enough pilots to fly its planes in February. More than 50 flights were grounded when 143 pilots retired and the airline avoided further cancellations by putting 250 managers, who were qualified pilots, into cockpits.
Here in Canada, a hiring boom is underway as carriers try to navigate around a similar fate. Air Canada has hired nearly 700 pilots since July 2005, and with more than 100 pilots retiring every year, training courses for new hires are being offered at least every month.
Air Canada regional carrier Jazz plans to hire 60 to 90 more pilots between now and the end of the year as part of an “aggressive recruitment” plan.
“We currently have one or two classes of pilot training scheduled each month for 2008,” says Air Canada Jazz spokeswoman Debra Williams. “The demand for commercial airline pilots in Canada is high.”
That demand is growing from the bottom up as major carriers, including Air Canada and WestJet, hire experienced pilots from regional carriers who, in turn, take pilots from smaller carriers, training companies and even flying clubs.
At Vancouver-based Pro IFR, one of Canada’s largest professional flight centres, the crunch has already begun. After losing seven flight instructors last year, the company is now actively recruiting.
“We always planned to lose a couple instructors every year (to the airlines) and now it looks like we’re going to lose about six or seven instructors each year,” says John Montgomery, Pro IFR’s founder and president.
The skills shortage is such a universal problem that some carriers and smaller outfits have even reduced their minimum requirements to get pilots at the controls.
“They’re going after people right out of flight school now,” says associate professor Seidel. “And that means they really have to be sure about safety checks and training once they’re hired.”
At American Eagle, applications are being accepted from pilots with 500 flight hours, which typically translates into less than a year’s experience. Of those hours, 100 need to be on a multi-engine airplane.
Western Canadian carrier Central Mountain Air, which flies between B.C. and Alberta, has gone a step further. It’s offering to hire “low-time pilots” to ground positions and then transition them into the cockpit.
All of this is raising questions about safety - especially for some foreign carriers that have less-stringent safety requirements. Experts point to last year’s Garuda Indonesia Airlines crash, which killed 21 people when the plane overshot the runway and burst into flames. The official inquiry found pilot error was to blame.
“Garuda was having difficulty hiring at the time and this incident was attributed to pilot inexperience,” Seidel says. “It’s obviously a very serious example and something that severe probably wouldn’t happen here in Canada. But it’s at the point that people might want to think twice about flying a discount carrier overseas.”
Before working for Kingfisher, Capt. Boucher trained some overseas pilots in an Airbus 320 fight simulator. After 300 hours, they got their rating and were cleared to fly as co-pilots.
“If the pilot becomes incapacitated, we taught them to use the autopilot to land because they don’t trust them to land the plane - it’s crazy, but it’s true,” says Boucher.
While some carriers may be aggressively pursuing newly trained pilots to meet growing demand, others offer an attractive incentive to Canadian pilots - the ability to keep flying past age 60.
“I know the guys that are able to retire now with Air Canada are looking at these carriers (that) will allow you to work to 65,” says Boucher.
Experts say an obvious solution to the pilot shortage would be for Canadian carriers to increase the mandatory retirement age which, in the case of Air Canada, was set back in 1957 when life expectancies were shorter.
“Sixty is quite young in a modern society and there are very few industries with a cut-off at that age,” Seidel says. “Pilots in their 60s are probably the most experienced to handle an emergency situation because time on the job is where you gain experience. I’d prefer to see no arbitrary retirement age and just regular skill testing, so if they fail to pass, they don’t fly.”
In Canada, commercial pilots over age 40 are already subjected to medicals every six months and the proposed changes would require one pilot in every cockpit to be under 60. Even so, it’s a move airlines - and even pilots - have resisted.
“Extending the retirement age will only be a stop-gap,” says ACPA’s Wilson. “To really fix (the shortage) you have to increase wages. There’s no retirement age for doctors and yet there are shortages - we have to make it more attractive.”
Entry-level airline pilots are among the poorest-paid professionals around. At some regional carriers, the starting wage is just over $20,000. Even at Air Canada, the nation’s largest airline, pilots are on frozen pay for the first two years and make $38,000 to start.
“We’re still making wages we made in 1988 and doctors, lawyers and accountants aren’t making the same wages they made then - no wonder there aren’t more pilots,” Wilson says. “If the airlines are concerned about the shortage, they should make the compensation more attractive.”
That’s what the trucking industry has started to do - especially in booming and labour-strapped Alberta and B.C.
“Our highest-paid driver in Alberta made $100,000 last year and the average guy is probably in the $60,000-to- $70,000 range,” says Trevor Fridfinnson, vice-president of western operations for Bison Transport in Calgary.
One of Canada’s largest fleets, Bison employs more than 1,000 drivers and operates all over North America. It has been coping with a chronic, industry-wide driver shortage for at least 10 years. While a strong dollar and high fuel costs have idled the trucking industry in other parts of the country, that’s not the case in Western Canada.
“Between B.C. and Alberta, there’s business and economic strength that maybe isn’t in Eastern and Central Canada right now,” says Fridfinnson. “The demand for people is high and, even with good pay, we’re still scratching to get enough people that are qualified for the job.”
Bison is looking to hire 300 drivers in B.C. and Alberta this year and they’re not alone. According to the Canadian Trucking Human Resources Council, 12 per cent of trucking jobs in Canada are vacant and 37,000 new drivers are needed every year just to keep up with demand.
Manitoba Trucking Association general manager Bob Dolyniuk says: “We have an aging workforce and the average age of a professional driver is higher than the average workforce age. It’s not so much about having the capital assets to grow, but having the human-resource assets to grow.”
In Manitoba it’s projected that 2,000 new drivers are needed each year and Dolyniuk says they’re lucky if they get half that.
As a result, many trucking companies are now recruiting overseas.
“We’ve brought over 100 drivers from various parts of Europe for the last three years because we just don’t have enough people here,” says Fridfinnson. “They’re paid the same wage and there’s obviously fees and expense associated with getting them over, so it’s not a small proposition. But if it’s a qualified driver who’s got experience, it makes sense to do it.”
With only 35 per cent of job applicants in Canada identifying themselves as “qualified” drivers, some less scrupulous trucking outfits aren’t so picky. “That’s absolutely true and with Alberta the tightest labour market, that’s where you’ll see shortcuts being taken,” Fridfinnson says.
Down the road, it’s predicted the situation will only get worse - just like the pilot shortage. “They’re all fishing from the same pool,” says Wilson. “The crunch has started and it’s only a matter of time before it filters up to the main lines in the next few years.”
02/27/08
An Olympian construction: Beijing's new departure in air travel
Wednesday, 27 February 2008
The Independent: World
To descend the walkways into Beijing’s gleaming terminal 3 is to enter China’s vision of 21st-century air travel and, more than that, Chinese authorities’ vision of their country. That most ancient of Chinese symbols, the dragon, is overlaid with state-of-the-art technology to produce an airport building that is beautiful, efficient and environmentally sustainable.
The newly wealthy citizens of a confident, powerful China will be treated to what is hailed as the world’s biggest building. Designed by Lord Foster and built by the British-based global engineer Arup, the terminal caters for a rapidly expanding middle-class in China, keen to exercise their new financial muscle by taking to the skies. The project was delivered in four years, less time than it took to start even drawing up the plans for Heathrow’s Terminal 5.
Beijing’s reconstruction, and transformation, from a 14th-century capital centred around a cosmological axis and the Forbidden City, has been the most dramatic building project the world has seen in peacetime.
And now it has its airport. It is stunning. A golden roof slopes gently above the glass and steel main structure, and the skylights dotting the top of the building are designed to let natural light into the terminal, which is just under two miles long. They look like the raised scales on a mythical dragon’s back.
“The design responds to the client’s requirements for a world-class airport with an environmentally responsible design and the need to be able to generate something special that can be modulated and built very fast,” said Rory McGowan, the director of building engineering at the Beijing office of Arup. “The interior has an asymmetric, curvaceous and spacious interiors but with modular features that allowed it to be built on schedule and for the machinery and electronic systems to be installed in a modular way.”
Along with the CCTV Tower, designed by the Dutch superstar architect, Rem Koolhaas, and the Herzog & De Meuron Bird’s Nest stadium, both also built by Arup, the airport is yet another of the towering architectural achievements that have marked the Olympic preparations. Norman Foster’s triumphant creation will wow visitors when they touch down in August for the biggest sporting event on earth.
Beautiful as it may be, the airport raises several issues. The rising number of air travellers is a nightmare for environmentalists watching as China’s carbon footprint begins to mimic that of the West. And although the structure has brought attention back to the Olympic preparations, the debate about human rights issues, China’s role in Darfur and the Tibet and Xinjiang questions are not going to go away.
The Olympics are a source of great pride to the Chinese, and a £3bn makeover of the city is intended to show the world the progress the country has made in the past 30 years of “socialism with Chinese characteristics".
The terminal is actually three buildings connected by a train and is similar in design, in some ways, to Lord Foster’s Chep Lap Kok airport in Hong Kong, particularly in the descending walkways entering the building.
Given that Hong Kong airport regularly wins best airport in the world prizes, and that Beijing’s present over-stretched international terminal is way down the list of the world’s favourites, passengers who use the airport regularly are hoping some of that Hong Kong efficiency rubs off on the new Beijing terminal. Inside, the feel of the airport is similar to that of Stansted or Chep Lap Kok, and follows Lord Foster’s principle about airports being like hangars, one big room rather than a lot of fiddly spaces which serve only to confuse passengers.
“In old airports, people feel disoriented,” Mr McGowan said. “This modern design gives you a sense of direction. The orientation of the roof means you have a directional flow.”
Dotted with traditional Chinese symbols such as red pillars, there are elements of the ancient temple here, all interwoven with contemporary technology and design and topped by an aerodynamic roof. Although it is not clear how much of an involvement feng shui advisers had in the airport – the necromancers who decide the most auspicious way to construct a building played a role in Lord Foster’s other constructions such as the HSBC headquarters in Hong Kong – the building is laden with vital and lucky symbolism.
The dragon shape is a sign of strength and a harbinger of luck in China. The terminal is shaped like the character for ren, which means “people", an auspicious term, and also a politically correct one in China, which is still communist in theory. The colour scheme, running from yellow to orange to red, is also in auspicious colours and, of course, the hint of dragon scale serves only to underline its lucky aspects.
“Terminal 3 will be one of the world’s more environmentally sustainable airports and has been designed to respond to Beijing’s cold winters, hot summers, short autumn and spring seasons,” Mr McGowan said. “The ’scales’ on the roof are oriented south-east, directed in to capture the winter sun, warming the building on winter mornings and make the most of available daylight during normal operational times and then to maximise shade in the summer, while still providing natural light.”
The building also has integrated environmental control systems to minimise energy consumption and carbon emissions. It is 17 per cent bigger than the combined floor space of all of Heathrow’s terminals, including the new terminal 5, which is one third the size of Beijing’s terminal 3, and has taken 20 years.
The addition of the terminal in Beijing and a third runway will provide what is already China’s busiest airport with the capacity to support the Games and allow up to 90 million passengers a year by 2012. Terminal 3 has a state-of-the-art £125m baggage-handling system with 40 miles of conveyor belts that can handle 20,000 pieces of luggage an hour, twice as many boarding gates as the old terminals and nearly 300 check-in desks.
There is a light-rail terminal which will whisk visitors in just under 15 minutes the 15 miles to Tiananmen Square downtown, and the terminal is equipped with the gates and a runway capable of handling the giant double-decker Airbus A380 superjumbo. The airy interior will have 64 Western and Chinese restaurants and 84 retail shops. The terminal cost £1.4bn and that is just for the building alone; with support services and other infrastructure factored in, the project cost £2.3bn.
The increased capacity will place Beijing airport among the top five globally for total passenger numbers, alongside Heath-row, Europe’s busiest airport; Atlanta, the busiest in the world, Asia’s busiest airport, Tokyo Haneda, and Chicago O’Hare.
Flights will start from the new terminal on Friday, and British Airways will be among the first six airlines to use the terminal. The remainder will be transferred next month.
Considering the fanfare to launch the other signature buildings for the Olympics, such as the Water Cube swimming venue, the opening of the airport was relatively low-key. Most media were not told about the launch, the Beijing Olympic organisers were not involved in the ceremony, and even some of the partners involved in designing and building the airport were kept in the dark about the event.
The official line was modest. The terminal is “a safe and efficient non-competition venue for the much anticipated Beijing Olympics Games", Dong Zhiyi, the deputy general manager of the Capital Airport Holding Company, said. “We feel very proud of our nation.”
It is set to be a major entry point for international travel, an absolute must given that Beijing will become the top tourist destination in the world by 2020.
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