Pierre J. Jeanniot
O.C.,C.Q.,B.Sc.,LL.D.,D.Sc.
Pierre Jeanniot is inducted into the Canadian Aviation Hall of Fame
Acceptance Speech
Canadian Aviation Hall of Fame Gala Evening
Montréal, June 14, 2012 >>
Monsieur Le Président, Mr. Chairman of the Canadian Aviation Hall of Fame, Tom Appleton, distinguished inductees past and present, mesdames, messieurs, ladies and gentlemen.
First and foremost, I wish to express my most sincere gratitude to the Board and to the Selection Committee of the Aviation Hall of Fame for this prestigious honor.
Je suis extrêmement touché par ce geste de reconnaissance que je me dois partager avec tous ceux et celles qui m’ont secondé au cours de tant d’années.
I have been most fortunate during my years at Air Canada, as well as at IATA, the International Air Transport Association, to have enjoyed the support of many extremely competent and dedicated aviation professionals. And I think that I can state categorically that without the invaluable involvement of those competent and dedicated people, the significant contribution attributed to me would not have been achieved!
Many of the Air Canada Executive team who worked with me at that time are here tonight. I am deeply honored and touched by their presence.
J’ai passé quelques trente ans au service d’Air Canada et je crois sincèrement qu’en dépit de l’importance médiatique que l’on a accordé à la fameuse « Boîte Noire » la contribution à Air Canada, que je considère avoir été la plus importante été la privatisation d’Air Canada.
Le gouvernement conservateur de Brian Mulroney ayant décidée de libéraliser totalement le marché aérien la position d’Air Canada, société d’état, devenait insoutenable. Sans l’ouverture de l’actionnariat notre ligne aérienne était vouée à l’asphyxie.
Le Ministre du Transport à l’époque, Don Mazankowski, comprenait bien la situation mais par contre dans sa situation actuelle la société Air Canada n’était pas privatisable.
Don Mazankowski me dit textuellement «Pierre, lorsque tu auras fait les changements nécessaires afin qu’Air Canada soit privatisable,le gouvernement la privatisera mais ne fais pas trop de vagues !»
Après avoir remplacé Air Canada par une ligne régionale dans une bonne douzaine de villes Canadiennes malgré l’opposition unanime des chambres de commerces et des députés locaux.
Après avoir renégocier les conditions de travail de tous les employés et subit trois grèves importantes et quelques boycotts les vagues ressemblaient plutôt un Tsunami! Je dois dire que j’ai quand même eu droit à certains égards de quelque syndicat.
Lors d’une des diverses démonstrations je me rappelle avoir vu un placard qui disait «Brian, débarrasse nous de Jeanniot – envoyé le au Senat!»
Je devais sans doute avoir besoin de repos!
I have been given credit for Air Canada pioneering wide-body, twin-engine operations over the Atlantic. And credit for ACARS, and in particular the first data link over the Atlantic enabling flight information to be transmitted electronically and automatically.
But much of that credit is due to the very excellent leadership of our technical and operations group, and particularly Captain Charlie Simpson ,then Head of Flight Operations, and who I am very pleased to say is here today.
Charlie is also famous for having shattered the “glass ceiling” – or should I call it the “Glass Cockpit” – in pilot recruiting. He hired the first group of female pilots, a group of twelve who were immediately labeled in Air Canada, “Charlie’s Angels”.
Although this may not seem like a significant aviation contribution, the introduction of the first ever non-smoking flights on a commercial airline turned out to be a bit of a landmark.
I took the decision – despite the strong negative recommendation of our Commercial Department who, by coincidence, were mostly smokers . The threatened, rather vocal boycott by the entire tobacco industry – growers, manufacturers, distributors – gave us tremendous free publicity, and we gained approximately five percent in market share on the Montreal-Toronto corridor.
We were still at the time a Crown Corporation, and the Federal government decided to take some credit for the results and progressively extended the smoking ban to all domestic flights. As far as influencing worldwide the non-smoking movement, the rest is history.
L’aviation internationale est un domaine qui vit beaucoup trop fréquemment en état de crise. Et l’Association du Transport Aérien, l’IATA, se trouve à fortiori au cœur de toutes ces crises. Il nous incombe de proposer ou en l’occurrence de prendre toutes actions possibles afin de minimiser les conséquences négatives sur le transport aérien. Les crises financières, es crises du pétrole, les conflits militaires tel que la guerre du Golfe – toutes ces crises ont requis des actions ponctuelles … et énergiques.
La plus spectaculaire aura sans doute été la gestion de l’importante crise résultant du malheureusement célèbre 11 septembre 2001 – the infamous 9/11 – qui a littéralement paralysé le transport aérien pendant près d’une semaine.
However, I believe that the most important achievement of IATA during my tenure was to convince the association to adopt safety as its first and foremost objective.
The support of ICAO was simply invaluable, and I would like to acknowledge the support of my good friend, Dr. Assad Kotaite, President Emeritus of ICAO. And we are very much honored by his presence tonight.
And in the context of reducing the aircraft accident, it was necessary to:
• conduct a detailed analysis of the different types and causes of aircraft accidents
• establish and set in motion industry-wide programs to address these various causes
• and accept the challenge of decreasing the industry’s accident rate by half over ten years.
Finally, we proposed that all international airlines should adopt the practice of periodically having carried out safety audits by external experts in a similar way that everyone calls on external financial auditors for their financial reporting.
I would like to pay credit to the technical Operations and Infrastructure Group of IATA led by its Senior Vice President, Gunter Matschnigg, for his highly successful efforts in fully achieving these demanding objectives, namely:
• 50 percent reduction in the accident rate in the following ten years
• and implementing IOSA, the IATA Operations and Safety Accreditation Program, which is now required to maintain membership in IATA.
Mes dix ans à l’IATA m’ont appris jusqu’à quel point les gouvernements, mis à part ceux du Golfe Persique, traitent l’industrie du transport aérien comme « une vache à lait ».
Taxes, levies, charges of all kinds unduly penalize air travelers and the airlines worldwide, to the detriment of the profitable growth of our industry.
In many countries, obsolete rules and processes create a bureaucratic and costly nightmare for aviation.
I recall that one day in India – attempting to illustrate their idiosyncrasies affecting aviation – the Deputy Minister for Transport smiled and said to me with some humor “you must remember, Mr. Jeanniot, we in India inherited our bureaucracy from the British – and we perfected it!”
Cette expérience internationale de quelque dix années durant laquelle j’ai souvent affronté des juridictions bizarres et franchement Byzantine m’ont fait apprécier d’autant plus le Canada.
Je me rappelle d’avoir fait éclater de rire le premier ministre Jean Chrétien, auquel j’avais déclaré que depuis que j’avais eu à travailler avec la bureaucratie Européenne de Bruxelles, je commençais à regretter celle d’Ottawa.
Mr. Chairman, I am afraid that I have exceeded my allotted time and I do plea for your kind indulgence. Once again, many thanks for this great honor.
Mesdames, messieurs, chers confrères et consœurs de l’aviation, de nouveau je tiens à vous redire combien je suis reconnaissant de l’honneur que vous me fait ce soir.
J’en suis profondément touché – merci infiniment!