Ozbiggles, no it is not a cherry-picked sentence. This is my email to the AFAP.
Dear David
The attached article is self-explanatory.
Could you advise whether your organisation supports the change of the Civil Aviation Act as per the agreement of the previous Minister for Transport, Barnaby Joyce, and the current Shadow Minister Anthony Albanese? The wording is as shown in the article.
I look forward to your urgent reply.
Regards
Dick Smith
Here is the answer.
Dear Dick
The AFAP represents over 4500 Australian commercial and airline pilots, including over 1000 pilots working in General Aviation. We share your concerns regarding crippling regulatory costs which have emerged for GA, in particular brought on by Part 61 (Licencing).
Aviation companies have been hit with enormous cost blowouts in training pilots especially on to higher type aircraft. As an example an endorsement on a B200 would have cost approximately $3,000 if done in the actual aircraft, but is now costing $20,000 done in the Ansett Kingair simulator in Melbourne under Part 61 requirements. Similarly, a flight test for an ATPL licence is now required to be undertaken in B1900 or similar meaning a similar $20,000 price tag for an applicant. This leads to the absurdity of it being cheaper for an Australian pilot to travel to the USA, where the ATP flight test is conducted in a light twin. Not surprisingly, the number of ATPL licences issued outside of the airlines over the last three years has plummeted.
These costs reduce the ability and willingness of general aviation companies to provide training to pilots in the early part of their career and is contributing to the current pilot training blockages being experienced within the regional airline sector and beyond. The AFAP supports steps to reduce red tape, foster pilot training and rejuvenate the general aviation sector of our industry. CASA considers it does take into account the financial viability of the industry, but plainly this is not occurring and their practice in charging $160/hour to read and approve changes to an operations manual is another case in point. In summary, the cost that Part 61 brought to the industry and the associated red tape has been horrendous, it has also increased costs to the Airline industry but they are more able to absorb these costs.
Turning specifically to your request, unfortunately we are not in a position to support your amendments to the Act which we believe could empower the regulator to relegate safety. Our refusal is influenced by CASA's establishment of the strategic Aviation Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) , dominated with Airline executives but with no-one to represent the recommendations and advice of professional pilots.
I wish you every success with your lobbying to government to re-invigorate the aviation sector, and the AFAP will continue to lobby against CASA regulation with no demonstrable safety benefit. Unfortunately, the recommendations of the Forsyth Review and incumbent CASA Board have failed to holt these trends.
Best Regards
David Booth
President
AUSTRALIAN FEDERATION OF AIR PILOTS
The interesting part is that for the first section of the letter, they appear to be totally agreeing with me in relation to over regulation and cost. Then they suddenly reverse their position with the statement that they wouldn’t support what I was trying to do.
I do know their position was given to the Minister as one of the reasons the Act should not be changed. If you were a Minister for Transport and you didn’t want controversy, you may as well keep the AFAP onside.
Just about everyone else who could benefit from the change remained silent.