Veteran pilot eager to get back in the air
Regina native says COVID-19 restrictions mean many changes for travellers and crew
From Apollo 11 to COVID -19, Marty Burke was delighted to chat about his fascination with aviation.
There weren’t any time constraints to the interview, considering that Burke — an accomplished Air Canada pilot — has been grounded by knee surgery and a subsequent pandemic that has grounded most scheduled flights since March.
“I miss it,” Burke, who grew up in Regina, said from his home in Guelph, Ont. “Travelling is fun. Flying with your crew is fun. Having said that, it’s not fun right now for our flight attendants and our pilots with all the procedure you have to follow for COVID.”
Burke will soon experience life at 38,000 feet from a different perspective. Next month, he will be a passenger on a flight to Saskatoon, where his daughter (Kathleen) is to exchange vows with Blaze Wilson on July 11.
“I’ll tell you how our flight to Saskatoon will go, because it’s pretty typical,” Burke began. “We’ll get to the airport in
Toronto. Once you’re in the parking garage, you have to wear a mask at all times.
“So you put your mask on when you leave the car, you go through security — which is really quick nowadays, because there’s virtually nobody there — and you wear your mask on to the airplane.
“When you get on the airplane, the flight attendants hand you a little bag. The bag has a fresh mask, gloves, Lysol wipes and a bottle of water.
“You go and sit down. Your mask stays on for the entire flight, except when you’re drinking your water.
“There’s no service to speak of. There’s no coffee, no tea, no alcohol, no buy-on-board, no food or anything like that.
“If you want to go to the washroom, you have to press the ‘call’ button and the flight attendant will let you go one at a time because they don’t want people lined up in close proximity near the washrooms.
“And then when you get to Saskatoon, you’re still wearing your mask. You walk off the airplane and then you finally take off the mask in the Saskatoon airport.”
But at least the trip will take place. Some consideration was given to rescheduling the wedding, but the relaxation of some restrictions allowed the nuptials to take place on the designated date. The number of invitees, however, has been in flux.
“My daughter has pared down her list from 200 people,” Burke said. “We’ll get 100-and-something in the church. You do what you’ve got to do.
“The invitations went out around Christmas time. Then she had to send an email about three weeks ago, saying, ‘For all intents and purposes, we’re going to try and re-do it next year.’
“Then the rules changed so you could get more people, so it became, ‘Let’s get selective here.’ It’s tricky, because who do you invite and who do you not invite? You’ve got the list of the family and all that, which is solid, but there are a lot more people to consider.
“It’s a bit of a juggling act.
You don’t want to hurt people’s feelings.”
The pandemic has also affected Burke’s son, Connor, who is an offensive lineman with the
University of Guelph Gryphons. U Sports recently announced the cancellation of all its fall sports, including football.
As for Marty Burke, he is a captain of an Airbus for Rouge — Air Canada’s vacation wing.
“We basically shut down Rouge,” he said. “No job for me right now. I’m still getting paid and everything, but I’m going to change airplanes, to the 787, in the fall.”
Ideally, the three-month training period will begin in September, allowing the 60-yearold Burke to return to the skies — at least in the cockpit — by year’s end and add to his already extraordinary lifetime tally of 15,000-plus flying hours.
“Air Canada’s only doing the right thing, keeping everybody safe from COVID,” said Burke, who joined the airline in 2000 after nearly 20 years in the Royal Canadian Air Force.
“But passenger flying is fun, and it’s going to bounce back. Right now it doesn’t seem like that to a lot of people, but if you want to go to the beach, you don’t look at a picture of the beach.
You go on the beach and put your toes in the sand. Airplanes do that.
“You don’t look at a picture of your family. You want to see them in person. We call it VFR traffic — Visiting Friends and Relatives.
“And there are business travellers. There’s video conferencing and Zoom and all this sort of stuff. It’s got its uses, obviously, but there’s nothing like face-toface.
“I think there’s a pent-up demand building to fly. It’ll all come back.”
Burke seizes every opportunity to come back to Regina, where his mother (Maureen) still resides.
The family moved to Regina in 1967 after Marty had lived in Lancashire, England (for his first six years) and Coronach (one year).
He attended the University of Regina, earning a bachelor of science degree, before going into the military and attaining a long-standing goal of becoming a pilot.
“You could ask almost every pilot of my vintage and they’ll almost always say the same thing — Apollo,” Burke said. “The space program. Apollo 11. Neil Armstrong.
“We all grew up watching the moon landings and we all wanted to be astronauts. That’s what gave us the bug.
“Being an airline captain is a good second to being an astronaut.”
Passenger flying is fun and it’s going to bounce back. Right now it doesn’t seem like that to a lot of people.