COURT FILE NO.: CV-18-593869 DATE: 20190527

ONTARIO SUPERIOR COURT OF JUSTICE

BETWEEN: AIR GEORGIAN LIMITED Plaintiff

• and -

ALAN EUGENI Defendant

COUNSEL: Shaun Laubman, Khrystina McMillan, for the Plaintiff Howard Winkler, Eryn Pond, for the Defendant

HEARD: April 5, 2019

O'BRIEN, J.

REASONS FOR DECISION

[1] This motion relates to a claim by Air Georgian Limited against one of its former pilots, Alan Eugeni, for defamation. The claim related to a book Mr. Eugeni had self-published following his departure from Air Georgian, the website associated with that book, and comments by Mr. Eugeni quoted in an article published in the Financial Post on December 13, 2017. However, Air Georgian's focus has been primarily on Mr. Eugeni's book.

[2] Mr. Eugeni brings a motion to dismiss the claim under s. 137.1 of the Courts of Justice Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. C.43 ("CJA"). Section 137.1 is sometimes referred to as Ontario's anti-SLAPP legislation. SLAPP stands for Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation.

[3] For the reasons that follow, I allow the motion and dismiss the claim against Mr. Eugeni. The crux of the motion is whether the harm Air Georgian has suffered or is likely to suffer is sufficiently serious that the public interest in permitting the proceeding to continue outweighs the public interest in protecting Mr. Eugeni's expression. In my view, for the reasons further discussed below, the harm to Air Georgian is not sufficiently serious. Mr. Eugeni's statements were in a self-published book, which was not widely sold. Meanwhile, a major Canadian publisher, the National Post, has published similar allegations that remain available to the public. In my opinion, the public interest in protecting Mr. Eugeni's expression on the subject of aviation safety outweighs the minimal harm to Air Georgian caused by Mr. Eugeni's statements.

Background Facts

[4] Mr. Eugeni was employed with Air Georgian as a pilot from 2015 to 2017. He initially was employed as a First Officer, and subsequently was promoted to Captain. Mr. Eugeni resigned from Air Georgian in 2017. In the six months following his resignation, Mr. Eugeni self-published what he considered to be a whistleblower-type book entitled "The Next Plane Crash: An Airline Pilot's Account of How the Race for Profits Is Destroying the Safety of Air Travel in North America" (the "Book"). Mr. Eugeni based the Book on his own notes and experiences as an employee of Air Georgian, as well as on anecdotes from other pilots, which he felt impacted the safety of employees and the public.

[5] On August 10, 2017, Mr. Eugeni sent an e-mail to a number of Air Georgian pilots, promoting the Book, which was available for sale on Amazon. When Air Georgian learned of this, it submitted a third-party notice to Amazon in relation to the Book, alleging defamatory content. Amazon then removed the Book from publication. Mr. Eugeni continued to sell the Book through his own website. The evidence is that Mr. Eugeni has sold a total of 247 copies of the Book.

[6] On December 13, 2017, the Financial Post published an article entitled, "Cabin pressure: Are airline contractors cutting corners on safety to earn business?" written by journalist Tom Blackwell (the "FP Article"). The FP Article quoted comments from Mr. Eugeni, as well as from several other former and current Air Georgian pilots, flight attendants and mechanics, including former pilot Olivier Nayet.

[7] Air Georgian considered statements in the Book and the FP Article to be defamatory. On December 15, 2017, it issued a Libel Notice, naming the National Post, Tom Blackwell, Olivier Nayet, and Mr. Eugeni as Defendants.

[8] Subsequently, on March 13, 2018, Air Georgian issued a Statement of Claim alleging defamatory statements in the Book, Mr. Eugeni's website, and the FP Article. The Statement of Claim named only Mr. Eugeni as a Defendant. The claim sought damages of $10,000,000. As a result of the claim against him, Mr. Eugeni has shut down his website. Meanwhile, Air Georgian did not bring a claim against the National Post or Tom Blackwell, nor against any of the employees or former employees quoted in the FP Article. The FP Article remains publicly posted.

[9] The Statement of Claim alleged that numerous statements in the Book, the website, the FP Article and a video embedded in the FP Article, were defamatory. The alleged defamatory statements were set out in Appendices A to D of the Statement of Claim. Those Appendices are reproduced and attached to these Reasons for Decision. In addition, to provide additional context for the FP Article, the entirety of that article is attached as Appendix E. Among the statements that counsel for Air Georgian offered as examples of what they considered to be some of the most egregious statements were the following:

From the Book

As a regional airline pilot for Air Canada Express from 2015 to 2017, operating multiple flights a day across the Northeastern United States, I witnessed daily the results of cost compression typical of many regional airline operations, as well as its impact on flight crews and passengers. The intended - and sometimes unintended - consequences ranged from the regrettable to the outright dangerous, often clearly and knowingly crossing the line into illegal operations.

This is my true story of what is happening daily at many regional airlines and how corporate greed is pushing us towards the next plane crash.

The unspoken has now been spoken, and aviation safety at my regional airline had taken a step backwards.

Breakdowns were regular and we trained mostly in the dead of night. Our instructors all stated their amazement at how short our company curriculum was: We had 32 hours of sim time before our pre-test to become proficient at operating the aircraft and handle every eventuality.... I must confess that after that, we managed to sneak into our sim several times and practiced procedures (without powering the sim) without the sim center's knowledge. The fact we had to stoop to this was just another reminder of the kind of airline I was flying for.

I had been with the company for nine months. I had flown through four distinct emergencies and one high speed rejected takeoff. I knew the chances I was taking with my life were completely out of proportion with anything that resembled a safe airline operation. I began looking for employment elsewhere... And yet my misadventures had only just begun.

Management's obsession with keeping airplanes flying no matter what did not end with dispatching mechanically unsound aircraft or flouting federal regulations. Sometimes, pilots were threatened if they refused to commit illegal acts.

[10] From Mr. Eugeni's website promoting the Book:

Each day, [the author] sees new frightening practices, including airplanes operating with broken essential equipment, the use of cheap repair parts that continually fail in flight, flying without proper navigation charts, operations managers deliberately asking pilots to break safety rules, incomplete pilot training ... all in order to reduce costs and increase profits. And those pilots that do object and refuse to fly noncompliant aircraft are reprimanded and demoted.

Following an incident on a routine flight that could have cost the lives of all 50 passengers and his crew due to poor maintenance, the author decided to speak out. He recounts how air travel became so safe in the 20th century and how those gains are slowly being eroded by the so-called "regionals" who will do almost anything to cut costs - regardless of passenger safety and federal aviation regulations.

Legislation

[11] The relevant portions of s. 137.1 of the CJA are set out below. Subsection (1) sets out the purposes of the provision, which emphasize the importance of encouraging expression on matters of public interest. It provides:

137.1(1) The purposes of this section and sections 137.2 to 137.5 are:

(a) to encourage individuals to express themselves on matters of public interest;

(b) to promote broad participation in debates on matters of public interest;

(c) to discourage the use of litigation as a means of unduly limiting expression on matters of public interest; and

(d) to reduce the risk that participation by the public in debates on matters of public interest will be hampered by fear of legal action.

Subsections 137.1(3) and (4) set out the test on a motion to dismiss under s. 137.1:

(3) On motion by a person against whom a proceeding is brought, a judge shall, subject to subsection (4), dismiss the proceeding against the person if the person satisfies the judge that the proceeding arises from an expression made by the person that relates to a matter of public interest.

(4) A judge shall not dismiss a proceeding under subsection (3) if the responding party satisfies the judge that,

(a) there are grounds to believe that,

(i) the proceeding has substantial merit, and

(ii) the moving party has no valid defence in the proceeding; and

(b) the harm likely to be or have been suffered by the responding party as a result of the moving party's expression is sufficiently serious that the public interest in permitting the proceeding to continue outweighs the public interest in protecting that expression.

Does Mr. Eugeni's expression relate to a matter of public interest?

[12] The first step of the s. 137.1 test is to determine whether Mr. Eugeni's expression relates to a matter of public interest. In this case, both parties agree that the statements in relation to aviation safety meet the public interest requirement. Air Georgian argues that not all of Mr. Eugeni's statements relate to matters of public interest, as, in addition to commenting on aviation safety, he also commented on issues between Air Georgian and its suppliers (e.g. alleging unpaid bills to suppliers). However, these are not the primary focus of either the expression or of the claims against Mr. Eugeni. In 1704604 Ontario Ltd. v. Pointes Protection Association, 2018 ONCA 685, 142 O.R. (3d) 161, leave to appeal granted, [2018] S.C.C.A. No. 467, at para. 65, the Court of Appeal stated that it is necessary to have regard to the "entirety of the relevant communication." The Court also stated: "An expression may relate to more than one matter. If one of those matters is a 'matter of public interest', the defendant will have met its onus under s. 137.1(3)."

[13] In this case, the gist of the communications in issue, looked at in their entirety, relates to aviation safety. Airline safety is a matter of significant public importance. It affects the welfare of the public and invites public attention. Mr. Eugeni has put into evidence numerous media reports addressing airline safety issues, as well as a government investigation report related to an incident at Air Georgian in particular (discussed further below) and a 2017 Report of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities on Aviation Safety in Canada. Among the witnesses before the Standing Committee was the Honourable Virgil P. Moshansky, who led the Commission of Inquiry into the Air Ontario Crash at Dryden, Ontario. His comments underscore the broad public interest in aviation safety. In his evidence to the Standing Committee on April 6, 2017 (approximately three to four months before Mr. Eugeni published the Book), he said:

Finally, I recommend the appointment of a commission of inquiry to investigate the state of aviation safety in Canada. I submit, with respect, that you ought to treat this issue with urgency, and not rest until you see meaningful steps to restore direct operational oversight. Among the lives you save could be your own.

[14] I conclude that Mr. Eugeni has shown that his expression relates to a matter of public interest. The burden now shifts to Air Georgian under s. 137.1(4).

Are there grounds to believe the proceeding has substantial merit and Mr. Eugeni has no valid defence?

[15] The next part of the test is to determine whether Air Georgian has shown that there are grounds to believe its proceeding has substantial merit and that Mr. Eugeni has no valid defence, under s. 137.1(4)(a). Again, the parties are substantially in agreement. Mr. Eugeni concedes that Air Georgian has met this aspect of the test for the purposes of this motion. I agree.

[16] According to Pointes Protection, at para 80, a proceeding has "substantial merit" where "the claim is shown to be legally tenable and supported by evidence, which could lead a reasonable trier to conclude that the claim has a real chance of success." In order to succeed in its libel case, Air Georgian must establish three things: (a) the words complained of were published to at least one other person; (b) the words complained of referred to Air Georgian; and (c) the impugned words are defamatory, in the sense that they would tend to lower Air Georgian's reputation in the eyes of a reasonable person: Grant v. Torstar Corp., 2009 SCC 61, 2009 3 S.C.R. 640 at para. 28; Platnick v. Bent, 2018 ONCA 687, 426 D.L.R. (4th) 60, leave to appeal granted, [2018] S.C.C.A. No. 466 at para. 51.

[17] Here, it is clear that all parts of the test are met: (1) the words complained of were published to more than one person; (2) the impugned words clearly and expressly refer to Air Georgian; and (3) the impugned words are defamatory to Air Georgian in that they lower Air Georgian's reputation by impugning its safety practices and record, an important component of the reputation of any airline.

[18] Given that this part of the test is easily met, the next question is whether there are grounds to believe that Mr. Eugeni has no valid defence. Again, in the context of the test for this motion, Mr. Eugeni concedes that he does not have a valid defence.

[19] The test for a finding of no valid defence is not onerous. According to Pointes Protection, at para. 84, the test to determine whether a defendant has any valid defences is whether a trier of fact could reasonably conclude that none of the defences advanced would succeed. As set out in Bondfield Construction Company Limited v. The Globe and Mail Inc., 2019 ONCA 166, at para. 15, "[a] determination that a defence 'could go either way' in the sense that a reasonable trier could accept it or reject it is a finding that a reasonable trier could reject the defence."

[20] In this case, Mr. Eugeni has put forward four possible defences, though he concedes for the purposes of this motion that a trier of fact could reasonably conclude that none of them would succeed.

[21] The first defence is of substantial justification - that the communications were substantially true. On this motion, Air Georgian has put forward evidence on which a reasonable trier could conclude that Mr. Eugeni's allegations are not true. Air Georgian's affiants included two witnesses with significantly more experience and expertise than Mr. Eugeni. Mr. Eugeni was a newly-trained pilot who, at the time he wrote the Book, had flown for less than two years at Air Georgian. By contrast, Air Georgian's witnesses included a senior pilot with 18 years' experience and a senior aircraft mechanic with over thirty years' experience, including 25 years at a "mainline" carrier, Air Canada. In addition, though Mr. Eugeni referenced a few documents to justify the truth of his allegations, Air Georgian's witnesses had access to and submitted more fulsome documentation to substantiate their position in response to Mr. Eugeni's allegations. Of course, aviation safety is complex and, if this matter were to proceed to trial, a full record may include other witnesses, such as independent experts. For the purposes of this motion, however, Air Georgian has put forward sufficient evidence to show a reasonable trier of fact could conclude Mr. Eugeni had no valid defence based on substantial justification.

[22] Air Georgian has alleged pages of defamatory statements, focusing primarily on the Book. I do not intend to address all of the alleged statements, but will give a few examples to show that a reasonable trier could conclude that Mr. Eugeni did not have any valid defences.

[23] One theme of Mr. Eugeni's Book was that Air Georgian and other regional carriers were less safe than "mainline" carriers, such as Air Canada. To show the falsity of this claim, Air Georgian points to Mr. Eugeni's reliance on numbers from the Civil Aviation Daily Occurrence Reporting System ("CADORS") database, reported by Transport Canada. This database reports the number of abnormal "daily occurrences" at a given airline. Mr. Eugeni, in a first version of his Book, described CADORS as a warning system for "any potentially dangerous trends, hazards or deficiencies" and stated it was a "good proxy to measure operator reliability and safety." He produced a table purporting to show that Air Georgian had a much higher rate of abnormal occurrences than Air Canada on a per aircraft basis, with Air Georgian at 51.2 occurrences per aircraft and Air Canada at 18.5 occurrences per aircraft.

[24] Mr. Eugeni subsequently realized that his calculations were not correct, revised the numbers in the chart, and published a revised version of his Book, a few weeks after the original. Air Georgian says the correct numbers show that it has 15.5 occurrences per aircraft compared to 18.5 at Air Canada. Although Mr. Eugeni corrected his numbers, he then said in the Book that not all abnormal occurrences are reported, and, therefore, the CADORS numbers "mask the true picture." In his motion material, Mr. Eugeni provided actual CADORS reports for Air Georgian, but these are much less helpful when they are not put in context.

[25] The CADORS numbers were one of the few if not the only piece of independent evidence (rather than personal and anecdotal accounts) that Mr. Eugeni used to support his thesis that regional carriers "were less safe. Once revised, they did not support Mr. Eugeni's thesis. A reasonable trier could find that Mr. Eugeni's thesis was not substantiated.

[26] As a second example, Mr. Eugeni's statements include that he has flown through four "emergencies" and that one incident could have cost the lives of the crew and the 50 passengers on board. The evidence of the Air Georgian witnesses is that the incidents were not dangerous and would not qualify as emergencies. For example, Mr. Eugeni provided his log book for an incident, which referenced a "single engine landing" due to an unresponsive throttle. Air Georgian's witness provided the contemporaneous Aviation Safety Report for the same incident, in which the pilot reported that the right thrust lever responded more slowly than the left, but that both engines were operating normally by 7,000 feet and he ultimately was able to land without further incident. I note that Mr. Eugeni provided further reply evidence on this incident. I do not intend to come to any conclusion on what occurred, but suffice it to say that a reasonable trier could conclude that the incident did not constitute an "emergency."

[27] As a final example, Mr. Eugeni claimed in his Book that he received only 32 hours of simulator ("SIM") training. He also said that he "trained mostly in the dead of night." However, the evidence provided by Air Georgian's witness, including the training schedule, showed that one out of nine of Mr. Eugeni's SIM sessions was at night. In addition, the evidence of Air Georgian is that Mr. Eugeni received 38 hours of SIM training in Berlin, followed by ten hours of SIM training in Ontario. He also received over 60 hours of in-flight training with an experienced training captain. Again, Mr. Eugeni has a reply to this but a reasonable trier could find that he had more training hours than disclosed in his Book.

[28] The other defences put forward by Mr. Eugeni were fair comment, responsible communication and qualified privilege. Mr. Eugeni has also conceded for the purposes of this motion that a reasonable trier of fact could find that none of these defences were valid.

[29] The constituent elements of the defence of fair comment as articulated by the Supreme Court of Canada in WIC Radio Ltd. v. Simpson, 2008 SCC 40, [2008] 2 S.C.R. 420 at para. 28 are (a) that the comment must be on a matter of public interest; (b) that the comment must be based on fact; (c) that the comment, though it can include inferences of fact, must be recognizable as comment; and (d) the comment must satisfy the objective test: could any person honestly express that opinion on the proven facts? A reasonable trier of fact could find that Mr. Eugeni's statements did not meet the test for the defence of fair comment. His comments may not be found to be based on fact for the same reasons that the defence of justification might fail, as detailed above. Further, while some of his statements could be interpreted as opinion, a reasonable trier of fact might reasonably find that others cannot. Certainly much of the Book, while undoubtedly written as Mr. Eugeni's own personal "story," or account of events, is also presented in a factual manner. These include, for example, the "facts" relating to the alleged emergency incidents.

[30] The defence of responsible communication applies where the publication is on a matter of public interest and the publisher was diligent in trying to verify the allegations: Grant v. Torstar Corp., 2009 SCC 61, [2009] 3 S.C.R. 640 at para 126. Here, a reasonable trier of fact could conclude that Mr. Eugeni was not diligent, as there is no evidence that he attempted to verify the facts in his Book with Air Georgian, nor that he allowed the company to comment on his statements. Mr. Eugeni relies on the fact that in the FP Article, Air Georgian was given an opportunity to and did respond. However, it appears this was due to the journalist's reporting and not due to any action by Mr. Eugeni. It may go to damages rather than the availability of the defence to Mr. Eugeni. In any event, it does not provide a defence to the statements in the Book, which are the primary focus of Air Georgian's claim.

[31] Finally, Mr. Eugeni has put forward the defence of qualified privilege. An occasion is privileged if the person making the communication has an interest or duty in making the communication to the person to whom it is made, and if that person has a corresponding interest or duty in receiving the communication. It is rarely available for widely circulated publications: Lascaris v. B'nai Brith Canada, 2019 ONCA 163, 114 O.R. (3d) 211 at para. 36. Again, a reasonable trier of fact might conclude that this defence would not succeed.

[32] I emphasize that the evidence before me was not subject to cross-examination. In addition, the evidence at trial or on a summary judgment motion likely would include further expert evidence. On the evidence before me, however, I agree with Mr. Eugeni's concession that there are grounds to believe he has no valid defence in the proceeding.

Is the harm suffered by or likely to be suffered by Air Georgian sufficiently serious that the public interest in permitting the proceeding to continue outweighs the public interest in protecting that expression?

[33] The heart of the matter in this case is the public interest balancing under s. 137.1(4)(b). Air Georgian must show that the harm suffered or likely to be suffered by it is sufficiently serious that the public interest in permitting the proceeding to continue outweighs the public interest in protecting the expression. In my view, the balance in this case weighs in favour of protecting the expression at issue.

Damages

[34] Air Georgian argues that the harm it has suffered is sufficiently serious that the proceeding should be permitted to continue. It points to two types of harm: (1) that it has suffered special damages caused by employee attrition; and (2) that general damages should be presumed, due to the severity of the defamation against it. On the first point, Air Georgian says that following the release of the Book, there was a drop in morale among employees, and a spike in attrition, particularly among pilots. This, in turn, caused Air Georgian to incur over $700,000 to recruit and train new pilots. On the second point, Air Georgian argues that the severity of Mr. Eugeni's allegations establish the seriousness of the harm, as they go to Air Georgian's reputation for integrity and trustworthiness. Reputation is critical in the aviation industry, where consumers trust their lives and the lives of their loved ones to aircraft carriers like Air Georgian.

[35] In my view, as further discussed below, the damages suffered by Air Georgian are not sufficient to outweigh the public interest in Mr. Eugeni's expression in the circumstances of this case.

[36] In terms of special damages, Air Georgian has focused on pilot and employee attrition. While I appreciate that Air Georgian is not required to present a "fully-developed damages brief," there must be sufficient evidence to draw a causal connection between the expression and the damages claimed (Pointes Protection, at para 90). This is particularly important where the motion material reveals sources other than the impugned expression that may have caused the plaintiff's damages (Pointes Protection, at para. 92).

[37] Here, I am not able to draw the causal connection between the Book and employee attrition on the information provided. Air Georgian's argument is focused on the fact that, in the six months leading up to and including July 2017, its pilot attrition was 50 people and its total employee attrition was 106 people. In the six months following the publication of the Book (August 2017 to January 2018), the pilot attrition was 75 people and total employee attrition was 132 people. In other words, it says there was increased attrition in the six months following the publication of the Book.

[38] The first problem is that the FP Article was also published during the second six months (December 13, 2017) and, therefore, also could have had an impact on attrition, particularly if the attrition happened primarily toward the end of the six month period. The evidence before me does not provide a breakdown of the attrition within the six-month period. More importantly, there are other potential causes of attrition. Air Georgian was facing an ongoing issue with recruiting and retaining pilots. It had an existing arrangement with Air Canada (called a Pilot Mobility Arrangement), whereby pilots with Air Georgian were guaranteed an interview with Air Canada once they reached certain seniority and qualification requirements. A significant number of pilots would leave Air Georgian for Air Canada, which was considered to provide better opportunities and working conditions. An internal Air Georgian memorandum dated November 30, 2016 stated "We are expecting higher levels of attrition next year due to an expected increase in Air Canada hiring.... " In other words, Air Georgian expected higher levels of attrition for 2017, the year on which it is now focused, due to a source other than the impugned expression.

[39] I appreciate that this does not address the question of increased attrition during the six months from August 2017 to January 2018 compared to the previous six months, but I have not been provided with any comparisons to say this is unusual. It may be that it is common for attrition rates to be higher in the second half of a year. There is also no other evidence (e.g. from departing employees providing exit interviews) connecting the attrition to the Book.

[40] Another cause of employee attrition affecting Air Georgian was competition from other airlines. Troy Stephens, Air Georgian's vice-president of flight operations, who swore an affidavit in this proceeding, was quoted in a CBC news article on January 8, 2018 (toward the end of the claimed six-month spike in pilot attrition), blaming attrition on competition from other airlines. An excerpt from the article, which is entitled "Who's going to fly the plane? Pilot shortage could get worse for regional carriers" reads as follows:

Mississauga, Ont.-based Air Georgian, which operates under the Air Canada Express banner, has had to cancel flights because of the pilot shortage. When there are cancellations because of poor weather, the airline struggles to catch up since there aren't fresh crews available to call in.

'With every airline hiring right now, there is a lot of competition out there,' said Troy Stephens, vice-president of flight operations at Air Georgian.

Not only is there competition for pilots in Canada with air travel expanding in this country; but international airlines are also looking to hire Canadian pilots.

'The competition never used to be like it is all around the world. You have Amazon buying Airbuses, Vietnam putting in crazy orders, the Middle East buying hundreds,' said Stephens. 'They're paying big dollars to get our pilots who speak English and have experience.'

[41] In the same article, another airline complained that 10 out of its 50 pilots were "plucked by national airlines" in a single month. In short, the evidence demonstrates other causes of attrition and the evidence before me does not show that attrition necessarily is expected to occur at a steady rate through the course of a year. Even understanding that Air Georgian is not expected to have fully-developed evidence on this preliminary motion, given the other sources for pilot attrition in the evidence, I cannot attribute the claimed attrition to the Book.

[42] Also, and importantly, with respect to Air Georgian's claim of general harm to its reputation, Air Georgian has not shown that Mr. Eugeni's Book is the real source of its problem. Air Georgian relies on Montour v. Beacon Publishing Inc., 2019 ONCA 246 at para. 35 to say that in some cases, a false statement may reasonably be supposed to have such a serious impact upon reputation that harm may be presumed.

[43] I agree that the nature of the statements here, which go to the safety of Air Georgian's operations, are very serious. However, the focus of Air Georgian's case against Mr. Eugeni is on his Book. Almost none of its argument has focused on the FP Article, which was published in December 2017 and remains available on the Financial Post website.

[44] By contrast, the evidence is that Mr. Eugeni's Book sold a total of only 247 copies. The evidence does not support that the Book reached a wide audience. Mr. Eugeni has taken down his website, which was his source to sell his Book. I am not aware of any monetary or other evidence to suggest the Book had any impact on the broader public. There is no evidence to suggest a loss of customers or business at Air Georgian attributable to the Book. This is to be contrasted with the situation in Montour. Although the court was prepared to presume general damages there in the context of the seriousness of the allegations, the publication there, a magazine, had a circulation of 16,000 and was distributed to members of Parliament and Cabinet, provincial legislatures, and industry executives in the relevant fields. Where a defamatory statement only reaches a small number of people, the general damages might be considered minimal. (As one example on this point, see: Armstrong v. Corus Entertainment, 2018 ONCA 689, 143 O.R. (3d) 54 at paras. 80-82)

[45] Moreover, the narrative of concerns about safety at Air Georgian is otherwise broadly in the public sphere, from sources other than Mr. Eugeni's Book. If Air Georgian has suffered an impact to its reputation, it more likely has come from other media reports and public documents. The FP Article was published by Postmedia, one of the largest publishers in Canada. Air Georgian never sued Postmedia and, as a result, the FP Article remains on the Financial Post website, accessible to a worldwide audience. That article includes statements criticizing Air Georgian's safety practices, not only from Mr. Eugeni, but from a number of others. The following are some examples of statements in that article not made by Mr. Eugeni:

But other pilots at the company that annually handles 62,000 Air Canada Express-branded flights separately told the National Post of having one or more emergency landings over a similar one-to-two year period, and allege a troubling approach to safety and maintenance at the airline.

Defects are often left unfixed as long as legally possible, crews are pushed to their physical limits and reporting problems are sometimes discouraged, said current and former pilots and flight attendants.

"I was always on my guard: 'Is something going to go wrong today?'" said Olivier Nayet, a pilot who left Georgian a year ago after what he called two emergency landings in 19 months.

"I fear for Georgian," one mechanic wrote in a text to a crew member after he left the company. "I was trying my best to keep anything bad from happening but I couldn't take the B.S. anymore ... I think something bad is coming down the pipe the way they do their maintenance."

Nayet recalls a day his flight from Toronto to Kansas City went through three planes. According to Nayet, a piece of metal fell off an engine on the first, the second was grounded for other defects and the third, though eventually deemed airworthy, had mechanical problems that further delayed the trip.

[46] In addition to the statements in this article, in May 2018, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada released an Aviation Investigation Report that was critical of Air Georgian. The report related to an Air Georgian incident at Calgary International Airport in July 2016. It concluded that an emergency had occurred, with the aircraft landing with the nose gear in a partially extended position. The report's findings included that maintenance personnel were not properly trained on the issue that caused the emergency, that Air Georgian's safety management system was ineffective with respect to the issue, and that Air Georgian's quality program was a contributing factor to the occurrence.

[47] The National Post then published an article on this report, dated June 18, 2018, also written by journalist Tom Blackwell. That article included numerous statements raising concerns about safety at Air Georgian. These included the following:

A company that provides thousands of Air Canada-branded flights annually had flawed safety-management, quality-control and maintenance systems, which helped trigger a landing-gear breakdown and tense emergency landing two years ago, a federal investigation has concluded.

But the recent Transportation Safety Board report concluded the malfunctioning gear was the result of longstanding, systemic problems at Air Georgian Ltd., the subcontractor that operated that flight, and runs 62,000 others for Air Canada yearly.

But Lee [the Transportation Safety Board's regional manager] said the findings do raise broader concerns, as "the system that didn't catch that lubrication task is the same system that oversees other, maybe more serious maintenance activities as well."

[48] In the context of these statements, published by official government investigators and on the website of one of the largest Canadian publishers, Mr. Eugeni's sale of 247 copies of a self-published book can be expected to have had minimal impact on Air Georgian's general reputation. While I recognize that the Transportation Safety Board report and National Post article post-date the Book, the FP Article nonetheless can be expected to have had a much more wide-ranging impact than the Book. Moreover, s. 137.1(4)(b) is aimed somewhat prospectively at "harm likely to be or have been suffered...". Any ongoing harm allegedly caused by the Book, though it is out of circulation, would be eclipsed easily by these widely-available articles.

Quality of Expression

[49] In weighing the public interest in protecting Mr. Eugeni's expression, it is necessary under s. 137.1(4)(b), in addition to considering any harm caused, to consider the quality of the expression or motivation of the speaker. According to Pointes Protection, at para. 94, both of these factors play an important role in measuring the extent to which there is a public interest in protecting the expression. "Not all expression on matters of public interest serves the values underlying freedom of expression in the same way or to the same degree."

[50] Air Georgian argues that the public interest in protecting Mr. Eugeni's expression is minimal. It says that there is evidence that Mr. Eugeni's statements were motivated by malice. It points to the fact that Mr. Eugeni resigned from Air Georgian after Air Canada rescinded an offer of employment to him. The reason Air Canada pulled the offer was that it discovered Mr. Eugeni had breached its travel policy by booking free "business travel" seats when commuting home to Montreal, which was not permitted. Air Georgian argues that Mr. Eugeni was motivated by a desire to "get back" at Air Georgian.

[51] Air Georgian also says that if Mr. Eugeni legitimately had concerns about safety at Air Georgian, he could have, but did not, report the alleged "emergencies" while still employed there. Finally, Air Georgian relies on Mr. Eugeni's "about-face" regarding the CADORS reporting system, in that he originally relied on the CADORS numbers when he thought they supported his thesis. When he realized they did not, he claimed in his Book that the CADORS system was not representative, and "masked the true picture."

[52] In my view, there is room to criticize some of Mr. Eugeni's expression, although I do not see it in as negative a light as Air Georgian has suggested. I do not put much weight on the allegations that Mr. Eugeni could have raised his concerns while employed at Air Georgian. It is not necessarily unusual for employees to be reluctant to raise concerns while still employed. I also do not consider the circumstances of Mr. Eugeni's departure to be particularly egregious. Mr. Eugeni may well have been disenchanted with Air Georgian, but he was not even fired. He resigned and left willingly. Further, the evidence suggests that he always intended to publish or report on his concerns, as he took contemporaneous photographs related to allegations (e.g. of the aircraft) while still employed at Air Georgian, which he later used in the Book.

[53] That said, I agree that there is some basis to criticize the form of Mr. Eugeni's expression. His wording at times is provocative and sensationalized. Even the title of the Book is provocative, referring as it does to "The Next Plane Crash." These are serious allegations against an airline. While Mr. Eugeni's focus was on telling his own story, he appears to have made minimal efforts to verify his serious allegations. His initial reliance on the CADORS numbers, then subsequent claim that they masked the true picture, provide some sense that he intended to pursue a particular theme and was not overly concerned with objective information. In addition, he wrote an entire book, not, for example, a blog or a tweet. On the other hand, the Book was relatively short, was self-published, and does read as a first-hand, personal story. Although Mr. Eugeni spends a good portion of the Book describing his experiences at Air Georgian, the Book is not aimed only at Air Georgian. Mr. Eugeni's point goes beyond a particular airline and the first half of the Book is devoted to a discussion of commercial aviation history, as well as Mr. Eugeni's experiences as a pilot before joining Air Georgian. The Book also provides the sense that Mr. Eugeni genuinely believed, based on his experience, that his concerns about safety were legitimate.

[54] I also note that the nature of s. 137.1(4)(b) is that some claims that target expression on matters of public interest are properly terminated on a s. 137.1 motion, even though they could succeed on their merits at trial (Pointes Protection, at para. 86). I have already found that a trier of fact might reasonably find that Mr. Eugeni had no valid defence. In spite of this, the question is whether his expression was sufficiently egregious in its form and considering his motivation, and the damages suffered sufficiently serious, that the public interest weighs in favour of allowing the litigation to proceed. I will engage in that balancing after the next section, in which I consider whether this case meets the indicia of a SLAPP lawsuit.

Indicia of SLAPP

[55] The Court of Appeal has said that, in considering the competing interests at play in s. 137.1(4)(b), it is appropriate to consider whether the claim has the hallmarks of a classic SLAPP: Platnick, at para. 98. The indicia of a SLAPP suit include:

a. A history of the Plaintiff using litigation or the threat of litigation to silence critics; b. A financial or power imbalance that strongly favours the Plaintiff; c. A punitive or retributory purpose animating the Plaintiff's bringing of the claim; and d. Minimal or nominal damages suffered by the Plaintiff.

[56] This case does not meet all of these criteria. However, in my view, it has sufficient indicia of a SLAPP to raise concern.

[57] Looking to the criteria above, this lawsuit does not meet criterion (a). There is no dispute that there is no prior history of Air Georgian using litigation or the threat of litigation to silence its critics.

[58] On the other hand, with respect to (b), there is a serious power imbalance between Air Georgian and Mr. Eugeni. Air Georgian was Mr. Eugeni's employer. It was a regional carrier for Air Canada, one of the largest airlines in the country, and a major employer of pilots. When Mr. Eugeni began working at Air Georgian, his base salary was $32,000. In contrast, Air Georgian brought this lawsuit claiming $10,000,000 in damages, an inflated damages claim arguably designed to intimidate an individual litigant.

[59] With respect to (c), Air Georgian's motivation in bringing the lawsuit raises some questions. Although Air Georgian initially named Postmedia and Tom Blackwell in its Notice of Libel, it ultimately only sued Mr. Eugeni, even though the greater ongoing harm to its reputation would come from the FP Article and any other articles published by Postmedia.

[60] Air Georgian defended its choice to sue Mr. Eugeni on the basis that he did not respond initially when they complained to Amazon, but continued to sell the Book on his website and subsequently provided commentary to the Financial Post. By that reasoning, it is unclear why Air Georgian did not also pursue Postmedia and Mr. Blackwell, who published a subsequent article about Air Georgian in relation to the damaging Transportation Safety Board report. They also later published an article on February 7, 2019 regarding Air Georgian's loss of its contract with Air Canada. That article is entitled "Regional airline loses 1.5 million passenger contract with Air Canada, but firms deny safety concerns a factor." Under the headline, it states: "Air Georgian has strenuously denied allegations of safety shortcomings by current and former employees, first reported by the National Post." Moreover, although Air Georgian claims that Mr. Eugeni's comments in the FP Article were more damaging or offensive than those of the other commentators in that article (the other current or former pilots, mechanics, etc.), I do not agree that there is a significant difference. In my view, the comments of other staff, including the other pilot, Mr. Nayet, are similar in tone. They also, for example, reference "emergencies" at Air Georgian.

[61] The answer to why Air Georgian ultimately sued only Mr. Eugeni may be the following, as set out in Mr. Eugeni's factum: "There is no question that Postmedia, the largest publisher by circulation of paid English-language daily newspapers in Canada, would have been a much more formidable and well-funded opponent to Air Georgian."

[62] The other answer may be that Air Georgian was contacted for and commented in the FP Article and the subsequent articles published by the National Post. Air Georgian may be of the view that, in spite of the strong criticisms against it in those articles, the articles are written in a more balanced manner. However, that brings me back to the fact that Air Georgian's only real concern in this action is Mr. Eugeni's self-published Book, which only sold 247 copies before being discontinued.

[63] I also note that evidence of actual libel chill can be an important factor in the public interest evaluation (Pointes Protection, at para. 95). Here, the evidence is that Air Georgian succeeded in removing the Book from Amazon and Mr. Eugeni has taken down his website, where his Book otherwise was available for sale. He has said he does not feel free to pursue an important conversation about the safety of regional airlines and, in particular, Air Georgian. In other words, actual libel chill is in issue here.

[64] Finally, turning to (d), as set out above, Air Georgian has shown minimal damages. Only 247 copies of the Book were sold before Amazon sales were discontinued and the website was taken down. In my opinion, there is insufficient information to attribute employee attrition to the Book and there is no evidence of any other general harm to reputation (and I cannot infer significant harm due to the minimal sales). Any harm caused by the Book pales in comparison to the widespread and ongoing publication of concerns about Air Georgian's safety record in Postmedia.

Final Balancing

[65] Under subsection 137.1(4)(b), Air Georgian has the persuasive burden. It must show that the harm caused by Mr. Eugeni's expression is sufficiently serious that the public interest engaged in allowing Air Georgian to proceed outweighs the public interest in protecting Mr. Eugeni's freedom of expression (Pointes Protection, at para. 87). There is no question, as outlined above, that aviation safety is a serious matter of public interest and an important topic for public attention and debate. At the same time, Mr. Eugeni's expression has some provocative elements. However, in my view, the quality of his expression is not sufficiently diminished to be unworthy of protection. Mr. Eugeni spoke out on a matter of significant public importance. He caused limited harm to Air Georgian with his self-published book, but was silenced by a much more intimidating litigant. In balancing the harm caused by Mr. Eugeni's expression, which Air Georgian has not shown is significant, against the public interest in Mr. Eugeni's expression on this important topic of public safety, I consider the balance to weigh in favour of protecting the expression.

[66] Accordingly, the motion is allowed.

[67] The parties may provide me with their costs submissions by e-mail to my judicial assistant, Anna Maria Tiberio at annamaria.tiberio@ontario.ca. Mr. Eugeni will have 30 days from the date of this decision to provide his submissions and Air Georgian will then have 15 days to respond. Each party should provide submissions not exceeding four pages, not including costs outlines or other attachments.

O'Brien, J. Released: May 27, 2019

Appendix A

"The intended - and sometimes unintended - consequences ranged from the regrettable to the outright dangerous, often clearly and knowingly crossing the line into illegal operations." "My uniform was incomplete, since the uniform supplier did not have a complete inventory for our company - something about being owed money for unpaid bills and refusing to reorder, according to them." "As a regional airline pilot for Air Canada Express from 2015 to 2017, operating multiple flights a day across the Northeastern United States, I witnessed daily the results of cost compression typical of many regional airline operations, as well as its impact on flight crews and passengers. The intended - and sometimes unintended - consequences ranged from the regrettable to the outright dangerous, often clearly and knowingly crossing the line into illegal operations. This is my true story of what is happening daily at many regional airlines and how corporate greed is pushing us towards the next plane crash." "At my regional, affiliated to Air Canada, pilots received a memo from the Operations Director in August 2016. It stated: "OTP is the first and foremost metric by which our success is measured and it is incumbent upon each of us to strive for 100% OTP"." "The unspoken has now been spoken, and aviation safety at my regional airline had taken a step backwards." "I later discovered that Georgian had the bad habit of waiting at the last minute before reserving sim training sessions - which cost in excess of $500 hourly. I also would later find out that bills from certain suppliers - including domestic sim training suppliers - would go unpaid for months, until the supplier cancelled all upcoming training sessions, perturbing company operations and inciting rapid disbursement." "Guess which simulator experience the cost-conscious airlines' pilots received? Usually an older simulator - which regularly breaks down in training and requires interrupting the syllabus for a technician to carry out servicing - all at around 3 a.m. Utilizing a sim in the middle of the night, completely opposite a pilot's ideal circadian rhythm for cognitive performance, is often the case... Thirdly, as outsourced sims bill for each hour used (contrary to an in-house sim), airlines have a natural incentive to minimize sim training hours to the bare legal minimum... I experienced all four budgetary issues. Our German instructors, while certainly well-meaning, had not seen our company procedures until 48 hours before our first training session. To say that they did not master our SOPs is a mild understatement (not to mention our COM, CDL, MEL and fault reset procedure). In fact, they would often halt the training and ask us - the trainees - what our airline would do in such or such a situation. We would politely reply that we had been hired 72 hours earlier and hadn't the foggiest notion. Breakdowns were regular and we trained mostly in the dead of night. Our instructors all stated their amazement at how short our company curriculum was; We had 32 hours of sim time before our pre-test to become proficient at operating the aircraft and handle every eventuality. After that, we were expected to operate a commercial flight full of passengers. Considering that some pilots had never flown a jet airplane before, the instructors recommended to our airline an additional ten to twenty hours of sim sessions. But this would have cost thousands of dollars per pilot and was a non-starter... I must confess that after that, we managed to sneak into our sim several times and practiced procedures (without powering the sim) without the sim center's knowledge. The fact we had to stoop to this was just another reminder of the kind of airline I was flying for." "While much has been made of the importance of a clean and safe working environment, our aircraft cockpits were never cleaned, wiped down or even vacuumed - contrary to the passenger cabin - another quaint cost cutting measure. Simply sitting, let alone eating, became a sanitary risk in the cockpit without a massive wipedown. Many pilots spent quiet moments in flight wiping down everything in sight - armrests, control column, instrument panel, pedestal, side consoles, overhead panel - with baby wipes. When airplanes returned from maintenance, they also returned uncleaned. On many occasions, I borrowed the groomers' vacuum and vacuumed the cockpit floor. The company was kind enough to provide each crew with a small paint brush to dust hard to reach spots." "During my time with Air Georgian, the pilot population was in constant churn. More experienced pilots left in droves seeking elsewhere a better job for better pay, to be replaced with new hires. Fresh recruits arrived every month, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, until the reality of the daily grind for low pay set in. The chief pilot told me they were "merely losing 2.8 pilot per month" during my first year. That doesn't sound like much, but we were only 60 pilots at that point, which meant an annual churn of 56% - an unheard-of number and unsustainably high in a highly technical field impossible to develop a cadre of senior captains with extensive company experience to guide and mentor new pilots in safe operations. In early 2016, the company was required to double in size, with new routes awarded from Air Canada... Unfortunately, our FOs were far too inexperienced to fill all the new captain slots, so a slew of direct-entry captains were hired, a move which raises eyebrows in any airline. These guys (and a few gals) had previously been flying freight in the North, floatplanes to fishing camps or small air ambulances to remote areas. They now had to operate passenger jets in some of the busiest airspace in the world. New pilots were everywhere, and often the senior FOs (defined as having been with the company for a whopping six months) were showing new captains what to do, both in operating the airplane's controls and following SOPs. The training department was swamped and could not keep up, making extensive use of outside instruction. Training courses would often start with as many as a dozen new pilots, then one or two would drop out before completing the course as they found out more about the company. One or two more would also often fail to pass their sim test, and then more would fail to qualify during a brief line indoctrination. Motivation was low and the attrition rate was spectacular... Of course, this was great for career progression. In a year, I went from being last on the seniority list to the number two FO. In a normal airline, such progress would take anywhere from 10 to 20 years. When I myself was upgraded to captain, I found myself near the top third of captains in the airline - after being with the company for less than two years. This is also unheard-of, and demonstrates the level at which pilot employment at this regional was simply a giant turnstile."

"In a year I went from being last on the seniority list to the number two FO"

"In June 2015 I had the first of many equipment-related emergencies. The fact this happened a mere month after I started flying for Air Georgian was a bad omen, and would foreshadow four emergencies - all related to equipment failures - over my two years with this regional. This abnormally high statistic was mirrored by many other pilots and often caused by repetitive known issues, a clear indication of chronic systemic maintenance problems."

"On this day, we were returning to Toronto and it was my leg to fly. About 25 miles out, we were instructed by ATC to reduce our speed and descend further, so I reduced power and set the new altitude. As the aircraft began to descend, our speed inexplicably crept up." "I reduced power further, but as I scanned the engine instruments I noticed that power in the right engine was being maintained. It was not responding to the throttle commands. I jiggled the throttle and that made things worse - power increased." "We were now accelerating beyond our flap speed, which meant we would not be able to slow down for landing." "The decision was made to reduce power completely on the left engine and carry out a single engine landing - an emergency procedure which is regularly practiced in the sim." "We would not shut down the problem engine unless it became completely unmanageable."

"My more experienced captain took the controls, while I ran the emergency checklists and configured the aircraft. The weather was good and we had a two mile runway ahead of us - always pluses when the proverbial feces is hitting the ventilator." "The landing went smoothly and we were able to taxi to the gate under our own power." "During the taxi, the problem disappeared as mysteriously as it had appeared." "The mechanical problem was duly reported and the aircraft would undergo inspection." "The next day... we were assigned the same aircraft as a day earlier. Nothing was outstanding in the log book or indicated a problem, so the aircraft was deemed airworthy.... The exact same symptom as the previous day appeared, with the right engine not responding to throttle commands on the descent.... I quietly swore at the AMEs who had obviously done nothing the day before.... I informed the captain that I would refuse to operate this aircraft until the issue was resolved, a position he agreed with. Why had this aircraft not been properly repaired a day earlier? Why did the flight crew have to needlessly address another potential mishap? Unresolved maintenance issues and repetitive equipment malfunctions would continue to haunt Georgian's operations."

"A minute after takeoff: ATC called us reporting tire debris had been spotted on the runway right after our departure... The captain tapped me on the shoulder and signalled [not to declare an emergency]... ATC was using its prerogative and declaring the emergency in our place... full emergency protocols were being put into place, with the airport fire brigade, ambulances and other emergency responders awaiting our arrival.... The fire brigade inspected our airplane and confirmed a shredded tire.... Upon closer inspection, a chilling account emerged; We had blown a right main tire near the very end of our takeoff roll, at a speed by which we are fully committed to lift off... The exploding tire debris, propelled by its 165 psi pressure, had struck and damaged the right inboard flap (which would need replacing) but - more ominously - had flown up the side of the aircraft just ahead of the right engine nacelle, as evidenced by black marks on the fuselage. Had this debris entered the right engine, it would likely have caused a catastrophic right engine failure and a possible fire, at the worst possible moment of any flight - rotation at takeoff. This scenario is every pilot's worst nightmare, because there is precious little time, speed or altitude with which to react appropriately and prevent the airplane from severely yawing to one side and crashing with full fuel tanks."

"...the tires used by Air Georgian were retreads... My incident was the company's third occurrence of a blown CRJ tire in thirteen months... each involving emergencies and airport disruptions... With only six CRJs in the fleet at the time, the tires were clearly an issue that was being ignored to the detriment of our safety. The chief pilot assured us that the use of retread tires would be discontinued."

[The description accompanying the picture on page 114.]

"One year later... two more blown tire incidents occurred within days of each other. Pilots were shocked... To our disgust, we found out that the use of retread tires had resumed at the company, despite the slew of previous incidents and managements' reassurances. This time, the chief pilot... issued a memo stating that retread tire use was being discontinued. Didn't this airline learn from past mistakes?... This was our third chief pilot since I had started the year before... We cynically wondered for how long this change would last and how many other inferior parts were being installed on our airplanes."

"As I activated the flaps switch, the comforting whirr of the electric flap motors was absent and nothing happened. A "Flaps Fail" master caution message instantly appeared on our status screen... The captain asked me to run the emergency checklist while he took over all other duties. Without flaps, we would not be able to slow down for the approach and landing, a situation known as a "hot landing"... I ran all the applicable checklists to no avail - still no flaps... at least two other company airplanes had suffered the very same fate on the same day - a complete flap failure on approach - and had to declare emergencies... The company was quick to blame cold weather for the malfunctions, yet other operators flying the same CRJ model that day in Toronto had no such occurrences. Once more, poor company maintenance had required pilot crews to use all their skills to ensure a safe outcome."

"I had been with the company for nine months. I had flown through four distinct emergencies and one high speed rejected takeoff. I knew the chances I was taking with my life were completely out of proportion with anything that resembled a safe airline operation. I began looking for employment elsewhere... And yet my misadventures had only just begun."

"Almost every day, I would be alerted by a warning or caution message which would extinguish itself as suddenly and mysteriously as it had appeared. Normal procedure would be to document such messages in the airplane's logbook... Unfortunately, our experience with momentary indications demonstrated that maintenance, which was swamped with more pressing and "real" issues, would simply sign off the logbook with a "No Fault Found (NFF) - Aircraft Serviceable" annotation - even when such momentary indications had serious consequences, such as a high speed rejected takeoff. This had the effect of making the aircraft legal to fly once more, even if absolutely nothing was performed on the aircraft."

"What's worse is that management at Air Georgian began to actively discourage the reporting of momentary glitches. When one training captain decided to meticulously record in the logbook every aircraft defect after each flight... he was demoted to regular captain status (with commensurate pay reduction). This incident permeated throughout the pilot population and extinguished any desire to report anything other than a major malfunction. This was made clear when in January 2016, a memo issued by the Operations Manager stated that before entering a defect in the logbook, captains were to: "...agree with maintenance to the nature of the defect and the wording of the defect entry"... Of course, such a request is both impossible to comply with and a conflict of interest... this is a clear conflict of interest to both the captain's and flying public's detriment, whereby captains... are made subordinate to maintenance personnel whose interest, particularly when overworked and pressed by management, lies in minimizing workload."

"During the day, the lavatory lights stopped working. On maintenance's advice, we reset the breaker... later on, the same thing happened. While resetting the breaker a second time was not approved, we knew that without functional lights, maintenance routinely gave us the choice of either a second reset or forbidding use of our only lavatory on board... the real solution of grounding the aircraft and repairing the problem definitively would be rejected as too costly and disruptive for operations.... resetting breakers repeatedly without documenting the reset in the aircraft logbook had become a routine way of keeping airplanes serviceable, even though this went against the company's own Fault Reset Procedure... during our last leg, the lavatory lights went out a third time. This time, we agreed on no more resets, and that a defect would be entered in the logbook. Upon arrival... the captain advised maintenance, which told him specifically not to enter the snag and that the problem would be discussed the following day with the next operating crew. The next morning the new crew notices smoke residue on the window shade just ahead of the lavatory bulkhead near the wiring in question... [this] is indicative of a possible short circuit with very serious inflight consequences. The new captain accepted to operate the flight back to Toronto... on condition that the aircraft would be grounded and repaired. The company agreed... Upon arrival in Toronto... despite the captain's vehement objection, the company refused to carry out maintenance actions... the captain automatically grounded the aircraft by entering a defect in the logbook... for this, he received a disciplinary reprimand"

"Maintenance arrived to check in with us... and noticed a large puddle of hydraulic oil on the tarmac under the right main gear... cockpit instruments showed the oil level near zero on the landing gear hydraulic circuit... the manager asked how heavy the leak was, hoping to classify the leak as "within acceptable limits"... in the hope of keeping the aircraft in service, that is flying with passengers. We pilots immediately reacted with a refusal to have anything to do with such a scheme... and the aircraft was indeed grounded."

"The MEL is a document which provides safe guidance for continued operation with known defects... It is not a license to fly with defects. Unfortunately, many maintenance-challenged regional airline abuse the MEL to minimize unscheduled aircraft downtime and consolidate maintenance events as a cost cutting measure. In some cases, such as at Air Georgian, this abuse manifests itself in a number of ways; MEL categories get very loosely interpreted, such that practically any defect could be deferred, even if not specifically listed in the MEL; when a defect is deferred... it is seldom repaired. [the plane] continues to operate on revenue flights for as long as possible; when maintenance is understaffed, deferring defects is used to consolidate the number of maintenance actions; MEL relief is stretched to the last possible day or hour legally permitted for each defect. As an example, flights were dispatched regularly with no working lavatory aboard for up to 10 consecutive days, the legal limit.... While in this case MEL abuse needlessly extended an inconvenience, in other cases, safety was often compromised."

"During the preflight checks, a warning light came on telling us we had a big fuel imbalance between the left wing tank and the right wing tank... the two separate fuel readouts were completely mismatched.... Following an uneventful flight I filled out the defect in the logbook, effectively grounding the airplane. The following day, this very aircraft was released for passenger service without any repair. As usual, the company covered itself by releasing the plane under an MEL item. However, this item was for a non-functioning fuel readout, not for two contradictory fuel readouts... the aircraft was now operating illegally."

"Many reputable mainline carriers have a limit of three or four [MELs], after which the aircraft is grounded... Of course, many regionals have no such limit and allow deferred maintenance items to accumulate to ridiculous levels. This was the case for us... My personal record... was nine MEL defects, including such major equipment as the auxiliary power unit, backup radio cargo closure switch, DME instrument and others. Other pilots experienced MELs in the double digits."

"At Air Georgian, the foremost concern was always regarding what was broken on the assigned airplane.... Every day we would show up for work cringing at the mechanical surprises in store for us." "One of our biggest issues was having to operate an airplane with a broken auxiliary power unit (APU).... It is an essential piece of equipment that otherwise requires three separate pieces of equipment on the ground... many companies will ground an aircraft with an inoperative APU, or at worse fly the aircraft back to base for immediate repair.... Of course, this is not the case at the regionals... I recall many periods during which 50% or more of Air Georgian's jet fleet had a nonfunctional APU."

"...the airport ground temperature was exactly 100 F... no air conditioning cart was available... so the only respite was from the open main door... as we closed the door and taxied out... the temperature soared again... the tower advised us that there was congestion for departure... that meant a 20 to 30 minute wait... I could only imagine what our passengers must have been thinking, strapped in and roasting in their seats."

"One year later, nothing had changed. We were still freezing in winter and baking in summer... Our APU was inoperative as its repair had been deferred. Over the last two summers, this had caused numerous health incidents across our fleet when aircraft had to return to the gate due to an elderly or infirm passenger suffering from symptoms of dehydration or heat stroke. And yet both Air Georgian and its mainline parent Air Canada continued to dispatch aircraft on hot days without a functioning APU."

"We got the first engine going and quickly realized that a power surge from the GPU had popped several circuit breakers, causing our instruments to give us a number of caution messages... Once these issues were resolved... the passengers had been aboard for 50 minutes, the doors had been closed for 30 minutes and my sweat was reaching my socks. I could do nothing for our 50 passengers and one flight attendant packed behind us like sardines in the sweltering heat with no air circulation.... We were told to return to the gate due to the fact that our ground crew had put another flight's bags onto our aircraft... once back at the gate, we needed to shut down our engines, unload all our baggage, reload the correct baggage and repeat all the supplementary starting procedures from the beginning... many passengers were wishing they had simply driven to Columbus... I am still amazed that no one reacted violently or became ill under such duress."

"Subsequent to this and many other broken APU events, many captains lobbied company management about instituting a mandatory APU policy. Of course, this went over like a lead balloon... The pilots were reassured in the knowledge that management considered that we were earning our keep only on days when we operated with broken equipment... The flow of resumes from our pilots to other employers increased after that memo."

"The company's penny-pinching ways were felt in every aspect of the operation, well beyond shoddy maintenance, sending broken airplanes aloft, crew and passenger discomfort, and record pilot turnover... We were not surprised to discover that Air Georgian had found a less expensive supplier for plates... The plates often lacked information or presented incorrect details that were essential for navigating... These charts became so unreliable, that our company began using some photocopied Jeppesen charts... This was not only illegal from both a copyright licensing standpoint and a federal aviation regulatory standpoint... but demonstrated to flight crews that even the company had little faith in these charts on which our lives depended."

"I quickly noticed that our navigation system wasn't picking up any signal to guide the airplane... we may have just lost our ILS/radio navigation system - always a possibility in our not exactly impeccably maintained airplanes... [the tower stated their frequency was 110.75]... we were on an entirely different frequency. I dialed in 110.75 and instantly our instruments came alive... and so my crew dodged a bullet that evening. I did file a safety report with the company and the Nashville approach plate was eventually corrected, but after that, like many captains at the company, I started carrying and using Jeppesen plates for all our destinations... The company officially objected to our use of the unapproved Jeppesen instrument plates, and memos were issued several times forbidding pilots from using them. After our experiences with the company Navtech charts, most pilots simply ignored these memos and carried on. We pilots suspected the company was secretly glad we did so, in the knowledge that at least some incidents and violations would thus be averted."

"It is in the company's economic interest to use crews as much as legally possible, especially if there is a shortage of crews - a perennial problem at Air Georgian. Thus, many of our scheduled days ran to twelve or thirteen hours of duty, with a minimal buffer for delays."

"Shortly before our arrival, a message arrived from our operations center asking us to do another two flights after our arrival - an impossibility as this would have put us well over the fourteen hour mark... The dispatcher acknowledged this and released us from duty. Shortly after... we received a call from the Operations Manager. He asked us to return to the terminal and conduct the two flights. When we mentioned that we would be unable to do so without breaking duty regulations, he said that we could "do the company a favor" and blame unforeseen circumstances... He was simply asking us point-blankly to break regulations."

"We later found out that our airline was under extreme pressure from our mainline customer to complete the flights at any cost. This flight was eventually delayed more than six hours, harming the mainline's OTP and reputation. As a result, our flight attendant was fired the following day. (She was rehired the following year as a result of a particularly lengthy union grievance procedure.)... This episode demonstrated that the company was now prepared to plumb new depths in its quest to fulfill its obligations to its mainline client for flight completions and OTP - regardless of its treatment of flight staff and its adherence to federal safety regulations."

"Management's obsession with keeping airplanes flying no matter what did not end with dispatching mechanically unsound aircraft or flouting federal regulations. Sometimes, pilots were threatened if they refused to commit illegal acts:"

"...an Air Georgian flight departing Cincinnati... lost all hydraulic fluid in the no. 2 circuit... The maintenance engineer [in Cincinnati] condemned the no. 2 circuit, which now made the airplane legally unairworthy.... The engineer deemed the aircraft safe enough to ferry back to Toronto for repairs and made a specific "ferry only" entry in the airplane's logbook."

"The company quickly secured a ferry flight permit. The permit specified... that the flight was to be conducted under... good visibility weather. The next morning, weather conditions in Cincinnati were overcast with low visibility, so the pilots called operations and reported that they could not depart. Word reached the VP of Operations, who called the crew and insisted they bring the plan back to Toronto. When confronted with the ferry flight restriction the VP stated that the ferry permit was not actually necessary and should not have been requested... The company responded by flying down a company mechanic... He was instructed to cross out the logbook entry of the previous mechanic mentioning the ferry flight - with absolutely no inspection or work done on the airplane. The same VP then instructed the captain to fly the airplane to Toronto, stating that the requirement for a ferry permit had been erased from the logbook and was magically no longer required. When the captain sternly objected to this manipulation of the regulations, he was informed in no uncertain terms that his career progression to the mainline carrier would be halted through a negative reference... The airplane was then flown to Toronto - illegally and at odds with applicable safety protocols..."

"With the company perennially short of pilots, most requests for vacation or stat days were turned down, and in fact most pilots would finish the year without having received their two weeks' vacation or legal stat days - in contravention to both our contract and federal labor standards."

"Management issued a memo in November 2016. In it, the chief pilot admitted to awarding only 25% of the vacation and stat day credits owed... And so there it was, the admission we all suspected to be true: For our regional airline to remain in business, it had to cut corners to the point of breaking federal labor laws. The memo was removed from the company intranet mere days after appearing... No doubt a wise corporate lawyer became alarmed at seeing such an admission being made public."

"Our hotel in Detroit, MI was located on Middlebelt Road, a very sketchy neighborhood in the suburb of Romulus, itself an area with a violent crime rate double the national average.... In June 2016, a young female company flight attendant was raped in her room during the night, after a stranger followed the crew back to the hotel.... The company reacted by changing the hotel for a different one... also in Romulus.... I suppose the airline was waiting for another catastrophe to occur before intervening in Raleigh."

"Let's do a quick cost analysis of the Detroit rape incident: The cost of a better, more secure hotel would be about $10 per room per night... meaning a cost increase of $60 per day to the airline. With our four daily flights to and from Detroit on CRJ jets, that works out to 400 available flight seats, or 15 cents per seat per flight. The decision to lodge crews in Detroit at an inferior hotel in a crime-infested neighborhood - resulting in an airline employee getting raped - was all about reducing costs by 15 cents per seat per flight. Such minuscule savings are what motivate virtually every bad decision documented in this book, impacting the safety of crews and passengers on every flight... The tragedy that befell this young woman was for the sake of pennies per seat on our airline's Detroit route. Was the extra profit worthwhile?"

"Seniority, vacation and stat day requests were seldom respected. Senior pilots would ask for morning flights and wind up with evening pairings. Our requested days off would be given to pilots who had not asked for those dates. Some pilots would get fourteen days off while others only ten. It was a mess.... And while management interference in the fairness of the scheduling process could not be proven, there were strong indications that such was the case. As an example, there was a correlation between less desirable schedules and pilots who were known to be leaving the company.... Repeated promises of a new computerized system were broken with excuses ranging from software integration issues to costs. With software-driven crew scheduling solutions in existence for many decades, with dozens of computerized solutions currently available on the market and with every other serious airline of our size (and smaller) employing a computerized scheduling system, there were just no excuses for running this side of the business as it had been 40 years earlier."

"The collective bargaining agreement was always interpreted in the company's favor, so few pilots dared file a grievance. They knew that the process would not only fail but would harm their schedules (given its manual production method, prone to interference) and career prospects, the latter being of great importance to the majority hoping to get a shot at mainline. Of course, a pushover union was just what company management wanted and the results were apparent... The result was that a freshly hired captain would earn the identical pay as a captain with many years' service with the company.... As we've seen, the company had no pension plan for the vast majority of its pilots and did not hand out the promised (and legally mandatory) two weeks' annual vacation and statutory holidays, preferring to pay them out in cash rather than recruit, hire, train and pay for a sufficient number of pilots."

"During the organizing effort in the fall of 2016, management became so concerned over having to face a real pilot union - especially with the current collective agreement ending at the end of 2016 - that it fired an OREA union representative (and captain) for discussing the Union drive with a fellow pilot while waiting at the airport"

Appendix B

Appendix C

Alan Eugeni had been flying at Air Georgian for only a month when he said the first one happened.

Landing a Bombardier CRJ100 as the flight's first officer, he said he pulled back the throttle to slow down the 50-passenger plane, but the engine on one side kept roaring ahead. Unable to get the jet to respond, Eugeni and the captain shut it down and made an emergency landing with a single engine, according to Eugeni.

The pilots, he said, duly reported the defect to their maintenance department and assumed it would be fixed, then went through exactly the same crisis the next day, the flaw clearly not remedied.

By the end of his not-quite two years at Georgian... Eugeni charges that he had two more emergency landings, the kind of unsettling event he said pilots at bigger carriers might experience once or twice in a 25-year career.

Declaring one emergency is a huge thing... it's not something that should happen on a weekly or monthly basis.

[All references to the Book contained in the Article]

[The portrayal, visual or otherwise, of Alan Eugeni as a current pilot.]

"That is unheard of in a major airline environment," [Eugeni] said. "Declaring one emergency is a huge thing... It means there is a potential catastrophe about to happen. It's not something that should happen on a weekly or monthly basis."

The four companies bid on routes to cities throughout North America using smaller jets and propeller aircraft, an idea that has become standard among U.S. and Canadian legacy airlines as a way to cut costs on flights that haul up to about 50 passengers, but still need two pilots and a flight attendant.

The result, Eugeni alleged, is a "race to the bottom," as contractors vie for routes at the lowest cost possible, and fight to get bonuses for flights that leave on time.

Defects are often left unfixed as long as legally possible, crews are pushed to their physical limits and reporting problems is sometimes discouraged, said current and former pilots and flight attendants.

Employees described captains repeatedly reporting dangerously low levels of engine oil, regular air-conditioning failures that leave crew drenched in sweat and a company memo that urged pilots to think twice about aborting takeoffs when a "master caution" light flashes on as they thunder down the runway.

Eugeni said he quit for a variety of reasons, including poor working conditions - low pay and being put up at bed-bug-ridden hotels being two of them - and word that he had no chance of graduating to a better-paying job at Air Canada.

But he also said he feared for his own safety, and "sadly" recommends his friends and family avoid flying Air Georgian (tickets say "Operated by Air Canada Express - Air Georgian" in fine print).

"I have a wife and a three-year-old boy and I want to see him grow up," said the Montrealer, an engineer by training who became a pilot in his 40s after selling a successful company. "The writing is on the wall: there's something wrong at this company and there's an accident waiting to happen."

But critics say a shift toward letting airlines take on much more of the responsibility for overseeing safety means Transport Canada may not be fully aware of what happens at Georgian and other airlines.

If employees have concerns, they can file internal "aviation safety reports," but those are considered confidential company documents and regulators would not necessarily see them.

Today, four independent companies operate the planes that carry relatively small loads of passengers to Canadian and U.S. cities as Air Canada Express, and compete to get flights under what are called "capacity purchase agreements."

Regardless, Eugeni said his first taste of what he called Georgian's cost-conscious approach came just after he was hired in May 2015 and was receiving simulator training through a company based in Germany.

Georgian's slots on the simulators were in the middle of the night, using trainers he alleges were so unfamiliar with the company's standard-operating procedures that they asked the student pilots - some of whom had never flown a jet before - to fill in the gaps.

The training outfit recommended an extra 10-20 hours of "sim" tutelage; when Georgian declined, the trainees took matters into their own hands, Eugeni said.

"We set up our own makeshift simulator with chairs, a desk and pictures of the cockpit in our hotel room for more practice, reminiscent of simulator training circa 1920."

He said he later discovered Georgian also skimped on "plates" - the charts kept in each cockpit that provide crucial information about airports. Instead of buying one of the three most reputable brands, it used cheaper versions that often don't include key information, Georgian pilots say.

For example, on an approach to Nashville International Airport, Eugeni said his flight was using the wrong frequency - supplied by the discount plates - for the instruments that guide the plane to the ground. After an intervention from a puzzled air traffic controller, he entered the correct data, and the plane suddenly veered onto the right course, according to Eugeni.

Georgian also uses a relatively old fleet; used planes that are cheaper to buy. Of its 30 aircraft - Bombardier CRJ jets and Beechcraft 1900D turbo props - 11 are at least 20 years old, another nine are 19 and the newest were built in 2005, according to Transport Canada records.

Older planes can be flown safely, but, not surprisingly, require more upkeep, pilots said. But maintenance at Georgian is often delayed or overlooked, they said.

Coloured stickers in the cockpit of a single Air Georgian plane indicate MELs: malfunctioning equipment that is allowed to remain unfixed for set periods. Pilots say it is unusual for airlines to operate with so many MELs at one time. [IMAGE that accompanies this text]

In many cases, addressing problems is simply put off, crew members alleged.

The defective gear is supposed to be fixed as soon as possible, but crew members said that doesn't always happen very quickly. Nayet said he once had a flight with 15 MELs; Eugeni said he once had nine. Both provided photographs that appear to show just that.

Each MEL is noted with an orange sticker next to the relevant switch in the cockpit, leading to a joke among pilots that the plethora of colourful markers was a new decorating scheme, Eugeni said.

All the pilots and flight attendants interviewed complained about one particular type of MEL: broken-down generators which leaves planes without air conditioning on the ground in summer. Sometimes, air conditioners used in flight do not work, either, they said.

One pilot described landing his aircraft in scorching heat without AC, the co-pilot so dazed that he was slurring his words as he talked to air-traffic control and forgot his flight number.

Another pilot claimed he had to make an emergency landing because an elderly passenger was suffering chest pains that seemed linked to the cabin's high temperature.

In an August 2016 memo, Georgian noted that while some captains had declined to take planes with malfunctioning air-conditioning system, they had no right to refuse to fly even if on-board temperatures topped 29 degrees.

Air Georgian said Eugeni never filed aviation-safety reports on any of his alleged four emergency landings - though it said doing so was a ''regulatory obligation" - and called his charges "demonstrably false."

But the pilot said he was the first officer, or second-in-command, on each flight and it is typically the captain's role to file such reports, part of the internal SMS system. He showed photographs of the personal logbooks he filled out after flights, which appears to note each of the four incidents, including flight numbers and locations, as well as the names of the three different captains involved.

One emergency incident caused by a burst tire on Oct. 20, 2015, was documented in a Civil Aviation Daily Occurrence Report System (CADORS) report, which is filed with Transport Canada, typically by air-traffic controllers. It noted that aircraft rescue and firefighting had been alerted, and that there was "extensive damage" to a wing flap.

They also balked at a memo issued by Georgian earlier this year that suggested they think twice before aborting a takeoff after an amber ''master caution" light illuminates in the cockpit. The memo noted there had been a "significant amount" of rejected takeoffs (RTOs) at Georgian. Though it conceded the captains who stopped their planes couldn't be faulted, it said the decision should not be automatic when the amber light flashes on. Georgian pilots said the advice could prove dangerous for a young captain without the experience to know when to ignore the master caution and that it seemed mostly designed to improve the airline's on-time performance. The real problem, why pilots are doing RTOs, is the poor maintenance on these old planes," said a crew member who had three aborted takeoffs in two months. "So, asking the pilot to think twice before performing an RTO is a very bad thing, allowing a lot of safety issues."

If safety and maintenance problems weigh heavily on some Georgian pilots, bringing them to the fore is not always easy, they said. All the pilots interviewed said airline headquarters urged reluctant captains to fly planes they felt might not be safe, or to hold off noting a defect in the aircraft's logbook - an action that legally requires the problem to be addressed before the aircraft can fly again.

Crew members also complain they often don't get enough rest, working long hours and frequently unable to take allotted holiday time, except in cash. Georgian said in a memo last November it had only been able to award 25 per cent of pilots' 2017 vacation. ''If you are low on the (seniority) list... there are not enough days in the year to make this work unless we increased our pilot numbers to a point where the business model doesn't make sense anymore," the memo said.

Appendix D

Appendix E

FINANCIAL POST NEWS · DIVESTING · MARKETS · PERSONAL FINANCE · INNOVATION · FP COMMENT · ENTREPRENEUR · EXECUTIVE · FP MAGAZINE · SUBSCRIBE · MORE · FINANCIAL POST Q.

Cabin pressure: Are airline contractors cutting corners on safety to earn business?

Former and current pilots at Air Georgian, which annually handles 62,000 Air Canada Express-branded flights, allege it has a troubling approach to safety and maintenance, but the airline said it is one of the country's most audited airlines, and the results of those evaluations put it in "the top tier" of Canadian operators.

Financial Post Staff Financial Post By Tom Blackwell

Alan Eugeni had been flying at Air Georgian for only a month when he said the first one happened.

Landing a Bombardier CRJ100 as the flight's first officer, he said he pulled back the throttle to slow down the 50-passenger plane, but the engine on one side kept roaring ahead. Unable to get the jet to respond, Eugeni and the captain shut it down and made an emergency landing with a single engine, according to Eugeni.

The pilots, he said, duly reported the defect to their maintenance department and assumed it would be fixed, then went through exactly the same crisis the next day, the flaw clearly not remedied.

By the end of his not-quite two years at Georgian - a contract provider that transports 1.5 million passengers a year in North America under the Air Canada Express brand - Eugeni charges that he had two more emergency landings, the kind of unsettling event he said pilots at bigger carriers might experience once or twice in a 25-year career.

Alan Eugeni, author of the self-published book The Next Plane Crash, is a former pilot for Air Georgian. (Dario Ayala for National Post)

"That is unheard of in a major airline environment," he said. "Declaring one emergency is a huge thing... It means there is a potential catastrophe about to happen. It's not something that should happen on a weekly or monthly basis."

Yet other pilots say his experiences were not unique, while Georgian itself is just one part of a surprising sub-set of the airline industry.

Although most Canadians have likely never heard of the company, it's among four contractors - the others being Jazz Aviation, Sky Regional and EVAS in Atlantic Canada - that provide planes and crews for short-haul flights under the Air Canada Express banner.

Most of the aircraft bear the Air Canada colours, the crew wear Air Canada uniforms and tickets can only be bought through Air Canada.

The four companies bid on routes to cities throughout North America using smaller jets and propeller aircraft, an idea that has become standard among U.S. and Canadian legacy airlines as a way to cut costs on flights that haul up to about 50 passengers, but still need two pilots and a flight attendant.

The result, Eugeni alleged, is a "race to the bottom," as contractors vie for routes at the lowest cost possible, and fight to get bonuses for flights that leave on time.

Indeed, while safety is the publicly stated top priority of Georgian, an August 2016 memo to employees also emphasized another imperative.

"As a reminder," OTP (on-time performance) is the first and foremost metric by which our success is measured... while maintaining the required level of safety," it said.

There is no official or empirical evidence that Georgian has more safety problems than other, similar airlines. It has never had a serious accident and holds a licence in good standing with Transport Canada, which said it does regular inspections of the airline.

An Air Georgian memo regarding the importance of flights leaving on time.

There is no official or empirical evidence that Georgian has more safety problems than other, similar airlines. It has never had a serious accident and holds a licence in good standing with Transport Canada, which said it does regular inspections of the airline.

Publicly posted reports to Transport Canada on safety-related incidents at airports mention Air Georgian about as often for the size of its fleet as they do Air Canada, considered to have a top-notch safety record.

But other pilots at the company that annually handles 62,000 Air Canada Express-branded flights separately told the National Post of having one or more emergency landings over a similar one-to-two-year period, and allege a troubling approach to safety and maintenance at the airline.

Defects are often left unfixed as long as legally possible, crews are pushed to their physical limits and reporting problems is sometimes discouraged, said current and former pilots and flight attendants.

"I was always on my guard: 'Is something going to go wrong today?'" said Olivier Nayet, a pilot who left Georgian a year ago after what he called two emergency landings in 19 months.

Employees described captains repeatedly reporting dangerously low levels of engine oil, regular air-conditioning failures that leave crew drenched in sweat and a company memo that urged pilots to think twice about aborting takeoffs when a "master caution" light flashes on as they thunder down the runway.

"The aircraft likes to fly," the memo said, arguing the problems can often be rectified in flight.

The airline rejected the criticism, and said Eugeni's allegations in particular are an act of "vengeance," since Air Canada rescinded a job offer because of his alleged "repeated abuse" of that airline's employee travel policy (Georgian employees get discounted Air Canada flights).

Eugeni has made false, "entirely fabricated" and defamatory statements, said a letter from the company's lawyer, Rocco DiPucchio. "He did not, in fact, experience any emergency landings."

He did not, in fact, experience any emergency landings.

• Rocco DiPucchio, lawyer for Air Georgian, in a letter

The airline cancelled an interview to discuss the crew members' allegations more fully, with DiPucchio suggesting the Post was intending to present an "entirely one-sided and negative" view.

He said Air Georgian is one of the most audited airlines in Canada, and the results of those evaluations put it in "the top tier" of Canadian operators.

Air Canada said it also carries out a variety of audits and reviews to ensure Georgian and its other regional carriers are operating safely, a requirement it describes as foundational and essential.

"To date we have not identified any issues that raise concerns," said spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick about Air Georgian. "Safe operations are a requirement and competitive advantage, not a 'cost.' This serves as a powerful inducement for regional partners to invest in and maintain safety."

As for contracting out operation of some flights, he said that is a standard practice worldwide and has a "sterling safety record."

To date we have not identified any issues that raise concerns. Safe operations are a requirement and competitive advantage, not a cost.

• Peter Fitzpatrick, a spokesman for Air Canada, about Air Georgian

Eugeni said he quit for a variety of reasons, including poor working conditions - low pay and being put up at bed-bug-ridden hotels being two of them - and word that he had no chance of graduating to a better-paying job at Air Canada.

But he also said he feared for his own safety, and "sadly" recommends his friends and family avoid flying Air Georgian (tickets say "Operated by Air Canada Express - Air Georgian" in fine print).

"I have a wife and a three-year-old boy and I want to see him grow up," said the Montrealer, an engineer by training who became a pilot in his 40s after selling a successful company. "The writing is on the wall: there's something wrong at this company and there's an accident waiting to happen."

Eugeni has detailed his experiences in a self-published book, provocatively titled The Next Plane Crash. It was originally available on Amazon, but was taken down after Georgian complained to the retailer about allegedly defamatory content. The pilot has since launched a website to sell the volume, saying he stands by everything in it.

Three other pilots and a flight attendant still working for the airline, as well as Nayet and a flight attendant who recently left the company said Eugeni's portrait is spot on.

The crew members provided company documents and photographs to back up some of the allegations, and two of the employees approached the paper unsolicited with their concerns.

"All of those things in the book did happen. The facts cannot be argued with," said one pilot. "It's pretty shocking."

Like other current crew members at the airline, he was not authorized to speak about its operations and asked not to be named.

Nayet said he quit Georgian partly because of work schedules that left little time off or rest between flights. He said he also encountered chronic maintenance problems with the planes, and pressure to fly even when pilots questioned the aircraft's safety.

According to Nayet, his emergencies included a flight that took off with one of two thrust reversers inoperable. He said that as the jet was about to land at Charlottetown's unusually short runway, the wing flaps also failed, meaning two of the systems designed to slow down the descending plane were out of service.

"It is kind of stressful," Nayet said. "You have to be really, really on your toes."

Air Georgian, though, questioned the pilot's credibility, saying that he quit after failing to be promoted to captain partly because of a lack of knowledge of the company's operating procedures, making him a poor judge of its performance.

And it denied the Charlottetown incident was an emergency, saying neither Nayet nor the captain filed an internal aviation safety report or declared an emergency.

Georgian said it undergoes "rigorous" safety audits conducted by the International Air Transport Association, an industry trade group. Those reviews cover safety systems, in-flight operations, training programs and maintenance.

Air Canada also carries out quarterly safety and maintenance reviews, said DiPucchio, Georgian's lawyer.

Transport Canada said Air Georgian holds a valid air-operator certificate, having passed the requisite inspections to ensure it is following Canadian Aviation Regulations.

The agency is not aware of any instances where crew members were discouraged to report safety or maintenance problems, said spokeswoman Marie-Anyk Cote.

A memo earlier this year advised pilots not to stop a take-off when a master caution light turns on. The airline says it was concerned with safety since aborted take-offs are dangerous.

But critics say a shift toward letting airlines take on much more of the responsibility for overseeing safety means Transport Canada may not be fully aware of what happens at Georgian and other airlines.

The Safety Management System (SMS) implemented in 2005 required companies to set up internal safety oversight that was supposed to augment - though not replace - up-close, unannounced reviews by Transport Canada.

The inspectors who used to regularly sit in cockpits and tour hangars now largely just review documents provided by the airlines, said Greg McConnell, president of the Canadian Federal Pilots Association, which represents government inspectors.

If employees have concerns, they can file internal "aviation safety reports," but those are considered confidential company documents and regulators would not necessarily see them.

Transport Canada has divested itself almost entirely of hands-on oversight of airlines.

• Virgil Moshansky, a retired judge and aviation-safety expert who headed the inquiry into a 1989 Air Ontario crash that killed 24 people on board

"Transport Canada has divested itself almost entirely of hands-on oversight of airlines," said Virgil Moshansky, a retired judge and aviation-safety expert who headed the inquiry into a 1989 Air Ontario crash that killed 24 people on board.

Now defunct, that outfit was one of the regional airlines that used to ply short-haul, feeder routes for Air Canada, most as fully owned subsidiaries.

Today, four independent companies operate the planes that carry relatively small loads of passengers to Canadian and U.S. cities as Air Canada Express, and compete to get flights under what are called "capacity purchase agreements."

Air Georgian's lawyer said it is ''factually wrong" that Georgian bids for Air Canada routes. But a 2013 news release from Air Canada states that it had picked Georgian to operate a number of additional routes after "a competitive bid process" that enabled "more cost-competitive" service in key markets.

Regardless, Eugeni said his first taste of what he called Georgian's cost-conscious approach came just after he was hired in May 2015 and was receiving simulator training through a company based in Germany.

Georgian's slots on the simulators were in the middle of the night, using trainers he alleges were so unfamiliar with the company's standard-operating procedures that they asked the student pilots - some of whom had never flown a jet before - to fill in the gaps.

The training outfit recommended an extra 10-20 hours of "sim" tutelage; when Georgian declined, the trainees took matters into their own hands, Eugeni said.

Olivier Nayet worked as a pilot for Air Georgian, which he left a year ago after what he called two emergency landings in 19 months. (He is not in an Air Georgian plane in this photo.)

"We set up our own makeshift simulator with chairs, a desk and pictures of the cockpit in our hotel room for more practice, reminiscent of simulator training circa 1920."

He said he later discovered Georgian also skimped on "plates" - the charts kept in each cockpit that provide crucial information about airports. Instead of buying one of the three most reputable brands, it used cheaper versions that often don't include key information, Georgian pilots say.

For example, on an approach to Nashville International Airport, Eugeni said his flight was using the wrong frequency - supplied by the discount plates - for the instruments that guide the plane to the ground. After an intervention from a puzzled air traffic controller, he entered the correct data, and the plane suddenly veered onto the right course, according to Eugeni.

Nayet said he once piloted a plane that sat for 20 minutes at the incorrect gate because the plates had him talking to the wrong agent inside the terminal.

Georgian also uses a relatively old fleet; used planes that are cheaper to buy. Of its 30 aircraft - Bombardier CRJ jets and Beechcraft 1900D turbo props - 11 are at least 20 years old, another nine are 19 and the newest were built in 2005, according to Transport Canada records.

Older planes can be flown safely, but, not surprisingly, require more upkeep, pilots said. But maintenance at Georgian is often delayed or overlooked, they said.

"I fear for Georgian," one mechanic wrote in a text to a crew member after he left the company. "I was trying my best to keep anything bad from happening but I couldn't take the B.S. anymore... I think something bad is coming down the pipe with the way they do their maintenance."

Nayet recalls a day his flight from Toronto to Kansas City went through three planes. According to Nayet, a piece of metal fell off an engine on the first, the second was grounded for other defects and the third, though eventually deemed airworthy, had mechanical problems that further delayed the trip.

Coloured stickers in the cockpit of a single Air Georgian plane indicate MELs: malfunctioning equipment that is allowed to remain unfixed for set periods. Pilots say it is unusual for airlines to operate with so many MELs at one time. (Photos from The Next Plane Crash by Alan Eugeni)

By that time, four passengers demanded they be let off the aircraft, he said.

In many cases, addressing problems is simply put off, crew members alleged.

Rules followed throughout the aviation world set up a "minimum equipment list" of parts that must be working before takeoff. Because some pieces of equipment have back-up systems, regulations allow planes to fly with those parts broken for a set period of time (known as MELs in cockpit jargon).

The defective gear is supposed to be fixed as soon as possible, but crew members said that doesn't always happen very quickly. Nayet said he once had a flight with 15 MELs; Eugeni said he once had nine. Both provided photographs that appear to show just that.

Each MEL is noted with an orange sticker next to the relevant switch in the cockpit, leading to a joke among pilots that the plethora of colourful markers was a new decorating scheme, Eugeni said.

"For an airline that carries paying passengers, I don't think that should ever happen," Nayet said.

All the pilots and flight attendants interviewed complained about one particular type of MEL: broken-down generators which leaves planes without air conditioning on the ground in summer. Sometimes, air conditioners used in flight do not work, either, they said.

One pilot described landing his aircraft in scorching heat without AC, the co-pilot so dazed that he was slurring his words as he talked to air-traffic control and forgot his flight number.

Another pilot claimed he had to make an emergency landing because an elderly passenger was suffering chest pains that seemed linked to the cabin's high temperature.

Georgian said no pilot could make that connection between heat and health problems, especially since they are legally required to stay in the cockpit.

An Air Georgian memo regarding hot cabin temperatures. APUs provide power to air conditioning while a plane is on the ground.

In an August 2016 memo, Georgian noted that while some captains had declined to take planes with malfunctioning air-conditioning system, they had no right to refuse to fly even if on-board temperatures topped 29 degrees.

"There are some days where we enjoy a career that many people pay thousands of dollars to do as a hobby, and there are some days in the 'office' where we earn our money," the memo said.

Air Georgian said Eugeni never filed aviation-safety reports on any of his alleged four emergency landings - though it said doing so was a ''regulatory obligation" - and called his charges "demonstrably false."

But the pilot said he was the first officer, or second-in-command, on each flight and it is typically the captain's role to file such reports, part of the internal SMS system.

"I fly for 25 years and I think it's the worst job I ever had"

• Olivier Nayet, a former Air Georgian pilot

He showed photographs of the personal logbooks he filled out after flights, which appears to note each of the four incidents, including flight numbers and locations, as well as the names of the three different captains involved.

One of those captains is now an executive at Air Georgian, which declined to make management available to comment; the other two did not respond to emails and phone calls for comment.

One emergency incident caused by a burst tire on Oct. 20, 2015, was documented in a Civil Aviation Daily Occurrence Report System (CADORS) report, which is filed with Transport Canada, typically by air-traffic controllers. It noted that aircraft rescue and firefighting had been alerted, and that there was "extensive damage" to a wing flap.

Most of the pilots interviewed also reported regularly discovering problems with low levels of engine oil - an issue that crew at major airlines rarely if ever have to worry about, said a senior captain for one such carrier, who asked not to be named.

At one point, the company's safety-management office acknowledged there had been a number of incidents where engine-oil problems in flight had required planes to return to the airport they had just left, or be diverted to another city.

In some cases, engines have to be shut down in the air because of low oil, pilots alleged. They also balked at a memo issued by Georgian earlier this year that suggested they think twice before aborting a takeoff after an amber ''master caution" light illuminates in the cockpit.

The memo noted there had been a "significant amount" of rejected takeoffs (RTOs) at Georgian. Though it conceded the captains who stopped their planes couldn't be faulted, it said the decision should not be automatic when the amber light flashes on.

Transport Canada said the memo "is consistent with industry norms," adding that the onus is on the pilot in command to decide whether the plane can take off safely.

only been able to award 25 per cent of 2017 pilot vacation.

But Georgian pilots said the advice could prove dangerous for a young captain without the experience to know when to ignore the master caution and that it seemed mostly designed to improve the airline's on-time performance.

"The real problem, why pilots are doing RTOs, is the poor maintenance on these old planes," said a crew member who had three aborted takeoffs in two months. "So, asking the pilot to think twice before performing an RTO is a very bad thing, allowing a lot of safety issues."

But DiPucchio said Georgian has made it clear to pilots that it is concerned about rejected takeoffs only because they can be dangerous themselves. He also referred to another memo that said the airline was not trying to "stifle or challenge" the captain's final say in such situations.

"The discussion on this topic is an example of the impeccable approach taken by Air Georgian to aviation and passenger safety," the lawyer said.

If safety and maintenance problems weigh heavily on some Georgian pilots, bringing them to the fore is not always easy, they said.

All the pilots interviewed said airline headquarters urged reluctant captains to fly planes they felt might not be safe, or to hold off noting a defect in the aircraft's logbook - an action that legally requires the problem to be addressed before the aircraft can fly again.

The discussion on this topic is an example of the impeccable approach taken by Air Georgian to aviation and passenger safety.

• Rocco DiPucchio, lawyer for Air Georgian

Nayet said some of the pilots even recorded their phone calls with management about such issues, worried about being held responsible should something go wrong.

Crew members also complain they often don't get enough rest, working long hours and frequently unable to take allotted holiday time, except in cash. Georgian said in a memo last November it had only been able to award 25 per cent of pilots' 2017 vacation.

"If you are low on the (seniority) list... there are not enough days in the year to make this work unless we increased our pilot numbers to a point where the business model doesn't make sense anymore," the memo said.

Nayet said the medevac outfit he worked at before going to the airline paid better and had a healthier attitude toward safety, as does his current employer, Ontario charter airline Skycare.

"I fly for 25 years and I think it's the worst job I've ever had," Nayet said about his stint at Georgian. "It's like bush flying."

Financial Post tblackwell@nationalpost.com

Published on December 13, 2017. Last updated on December 15, 2017

COURT FILE NO.: CV-18-593869 DATE: 20190527

ONTARIO SUPERIOR COURT OF JUSTICE

BETWEEN:

AIR GEORGIAN Plaintiff

• and -

ALAN EUGENI Defendant

REASONS FOR DECISION O'Brien, J. Released: May 27, 2019