Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Barry Petten told reporters on Monday that if pilots responsible for water bomber and air ambulance operations in Newfoundland and Labrador want their workplace situation to improve, they should tell him how to do it.

“We’ve got a major [turnover] of chief water bomber pilots, and that’s a concern to me. So obviously, there’s a root cause to that,” Petten said outside the House of Assembly.

“Ultimately, we got to get a resolution. Obviously if you’ve got turnover like this, it’s a problem.”

Petten’s comments follow reports of the resignation of the province’s chief pilot in the Air Services branch. A letter, attributed collectively to Newfoundland and Labrador Water Bomber and Air Ambulance Pilots, highlighted issues in the sector to government last week.

If a chief pilot isn’t found by June 29, the body of pilots wrote, Transport Canada could issue a suspension of Air Operator Certificate pursuant to Section 7.1 of the Aeronautics Act — which could ground water bombers without a solution.

A job posting for an interim pilot remains active while efforts to permanently fill the role continue.

In the House of Assembly on Tuesday, Petten said an interim pilot could be in place as early as Wednesday — telling the House the department was “very close” to hiring a chief pilot.

A day prior, Petten spoke of the challenges that came with filling the role.

“We have qualified individuals within our crews to do this job. For some reason, they’re not taking the offer. And that’s why I want to find out what’s the issue. What have we got, how do we resolve this,” said Petten said Monday.

“It’s a bit of guesswork. So we’ve gone back as early as [Monday] morning, again, and [are] like ‘Tell us what the problems are. What we need to do, and we’ll do our best to accommodate it’ …We can’t guess what they want until they come and tell us.”

Pilots don’t want the job: NAPE

Jerry Earle, president of the Newfoundland and Labrador Association of Public and Private Employees, said barriers like low pay and poor morale are impacting water bomber pilots across the province.

NAPE represents water bomber pilots in Newfoundland and Labrador, but the position of chief pilot falls outside of bargaining due to it being a management position.

But Earle said pilots have highlighted problems for years, including turnover in the chief’s role.

“I’m hearing in the last two, three years, there’s been a turnover in this position of six or seven different people. That speaks volumes, that should have raised red flags,” Earle told CBC News Tuesday.

Problems within the sector are greatly impacting the ability to recruit for the position and deterring the province’s pilots from wanting to step up, said Earle.

“[They’ll] sometimes step up in this role, get promoted into this role. I understand that they’re basically saying they do not want to take on this role right now because of the issues,” Earle said.

“Maybe if they got the attention directly of the minister, maybe if they were given absolute reassurances, if they were dealing with these morale issues in that workplace seriously, maybe we could recruit somebody in this position.”

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