Taken from the Airline Employee Forum
That's what I was thinking when I got to your post. The mental health aspect is always concerning. Speaking generically, not about WestJet but all airlines, if you have hundreds or thousands of people flying aircraft, there are going to be some who go through periods of temporary or long-term insurmountable stress. It is paramount for an airline to have the hard (programs) and soft (cultural) procedures in place to recognize these situations, encourage people to come forward, treat the individuals with respect and if necessary remove them from duty until they are fit. Routine medicals are rarely enough to diagnose mental issues if the individual is working hard to suppress them for fear of being sidelined or fired. Even Lufthansa which is one of the world's most professional and respected airlines found that its procedures could be circumvented in the German Wings case, perhaps abetted by German disclosure laws and a laxity in the medical community about diligently communicating concerns about a patient's unfitness for duty. What is fair to ask of WestJet is whether they have the approach and the tools to deal with these cases in a manner that encourages pilots to come forward about themselves or peers, and then deals with situations fairly as opposed to causing unstable personnel to hide their symptoms out of fear for losing their livelihood. I have no idea about the answers to these questions, just that these questions should be asked of all airlines.