Nav Canada

Nav Canada felt the impact of the late-2000s recession in two ways: losses in its investments in third party sponsored asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP) and falling revenues due to reduced air traffic levels. In the summer of 2007 the company held $368 million in ABCP which had become illiquid. On 12 January 2009 final Ontario Superior Court of Justice approval was granted to restructure the third party ABCP notes.[12][13][14][15] The company expects that the non-credit related fair value variances from face value on restructured and non-restructured ABCP (amounting cumulatively to $33 at November 30, 2013) will be recovered by the time the notes mature in fiscal year 2017.[16] By fiscal year end 2013, the company's revenues reached $1,231 million, which exceeded its pre-recession level and fiscal year 2014 saw further revenue growth to $1,272 million.[17][18] During the period 2005-15 the company held service charge rates steady.[19]

In the mid-2000s the company decided to address the lack of radar coverage in the Canadian north, especially in the area of Hudson Bay where airliners transition from the North Atlantic Tracks system to Canadian Domestic Airspace by deploying a ground-based Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) network. The five station network was operational on 15 January 2009, filling a 850,000 km² (330,000 sq mi) gap in radar coverage which allowed reduced separation of airline flights by ADS-B tracking over procedural separation. In January 2009, Nav Canada estimated that the ADS-B system would save its customers 18 million litres of fuel per year and reduce CO₂ and equivalent emissions by 50,000 t (110,000,000 lb) per year.[7][20][21]

In November 2010, a second set of six ground-based ADS-B transceivers was later deployed along the coast of Labrador and Nunavut, providing an additional 1,980,000 km² (760,000 sq mi). In March 2012 four more stations were added in Greenland, increasing the area covered by 1,320,000 km² (510,000 sq mi).[7]

In 2012, Nav Canada and the satellite communications company Iridium Communications Inc. launched a joint venture that will offer air traffic control authorities the ability to track aircraft around the globe in real time.[22]

The joint venture, called Aireon LLC, will use Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) receivers installed as an additional payload on 66 Iridium NEXT second-generation satellites scheduled to be launched between 2015 and 2017.[23] Nav Canada plans to invest $150 million for a controlling stake in Aireon. That sum is being paid through a series of installments ending in 2017 and will give Nav Canada a 51 per cent stake in the joint venture.[24]

The cross-linked Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites will, for the first time, make it possible to track aircraft from pole-to-pole, including oceanic airspace and remote regions, facilitating fuel savings, greenhouse gas emissions reduction, and enhanced safety and efficiency for airspace users.[23] The added surveillance that Aireon will provide will enable air traffic control to significantly reduce the separation standard in oceanic and other unsurveilled airspace from approximately 80 nautical miles (nm) to 15 nms or less. This will allow more aircraft to fly at optimum altitudes and to benefit from the prevailing winds such as the jet stream, saving fuel and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Aireon CEO Don Thoma estimates that this will result in an average fuel savings of $400 per flight for the three-and-a-half-hour trip across the North Atlantic. The annual fuel cost savings for airlines in the North Atlantic alone will be in the order of $125 million.[25]

In December 2013, ANSPs from three additional countries joined Nav Canada as partners in Aireon. Enav of Italy, the Irish Aviation Authority and Denmark's Naviair signed on for a combined investment of $120 million resulting in a new ownership structure for the company with Nav Canada holding 51 per cent, Iridium with 24.5 per cent, Enav at 12.5 per cent and the Irish Aviation Authority and Naviair each holding 6%.[26]

In September 2014 Aireon announced plans to offer ALERT (Aircraft Locating and Emergency Response Tracking), a free supplementary service for emergency tracking of aircraft in trouble. Aireon's ADS-B receivers on Iridium's satellites will already include ALERT's capabilities and the company has decided to make it available free of charge “as a public service.” Aireon ALERT could be activated by any certified air-safety organization to request the last known location and flight path of any aircraft carrying an ADS-B transponder, even if the operator does not subscribe to Aireon.[27]