An Air Canada pilot may have said he had nothing to lose but did not threaten to ditch his plane in the Atlantic during a dispute with the chief flight steward, the airline said yesterday. The case ended up in Federal Court after flight attendants, fearing the pilot might have been suicidal, refused to fly with him on a later Paris-bound flight.
In siding with the attendants, Mr. Justice John O'Keefe found that an independent investigator was wrong to conclude the conflict between pilot and steward was a "normal condition" of employment.
Instead, Judge O'Keefe ruled this month, the investigator should have first decided whether the pilot's alleged mental state did in fact constitute a danger that justified the attendants' refusal to work.
The dispute between the unidentified pilot and steward, Hugh Bouchard, occurred during a flight in July, 2008. According to colleagues who later refused to fly with the captain, Mr. Bouchard told them the pilot had threatened to ditch the plane.
"Hugh said that the captain had said he had nothing to lose as he was being fired anyway," court documents show.
A report on the incident made no reference to the pilot's threat to ditch the plane, said airline spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick. However, it did reflect Mr. Bouchard's claim that the pilot had said: "If I lose my job, I have nothing to lose."
A thorough investigation at the time turned up no safety issues with the pilot, who is still flying for Air Canada, Mr. Fitzpatrick said.
"This was not a depressed person speaking," he said. "It was said in the midst of a personnel dispute and you can easily imagine many scenarios where someone might use this very common phrase, which has many meanings."
When some attendants refused to fly with the pilot in August, 2008, the plane left with a reassembled support crew.
Air Canada took the view that conflicts can arise at any time and the attendants should have used the carrier's resolution process.
An independent federal safety officer was called in.
The safety officer talked to the flight attendants, union representatives, managers and others who knew the pilot and only the attendants had any concerns about him. She then chalked up the incident to a normal workplace dispute, and decided the attendants had no right to refuse to work. As a result, she decided there was no need to investigate whether the pilot's mental state did in fact pose any danger.
The Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents the attendants, challenged her findings.
Judge O'Keefe agreed with the union, saying the safety officer should have first investigated whether there was a danger before deciding if the attendants were within their rights to stay grounded.
Air Canada said it was not planning an appeal. No discipline ever flowed from the situation.
The Canadian Press