Glen Buckley and Australian small business -V- CASA

[Lead Balloon]

I honestly don't understand this argument of yours, LB. What if a directly employed instructor was told to stop training, and they "went rogue" and simply continued training a student without telling their boss. Logged it under a private flight and took cash for the instruction?

I’ll try to explain it this way.


ABC Pty Ltd is the holder of a flying training AOC.


ABC Pty Ltd’s CEO, Mary, is having her morning cup of coffee, looking out on the apron at the C152 and C172 of which ABC is the registered operator. It is a sombre morning, as the previous day Mary had to sack one of her instructors, Bob, for repeatedly failing to comply with the company’s Ops manual. Bob had not responded well. Mary had eventually directed Bob to vacate the premises and prohibited him from returning, otherwise Mary would inform the police that Bob was trespassing. Mary also told Bob that he was no longer permitted to use ABC Pty Ltd’s aircraft for any purpose.

Mary was therefore extraordinarily surprised to see Bob ambling out onto the apron, accompanied by one of ABC’s students and heading for the C152. “Oh well”, thought Mary, “there’s absolutely nothing I can do. I’ll just sit here and finish my coffee then read the newspaper.”

Methinks Mary might not be so sanguine and inactive. Methinks Mary may have some very stern things to say to Bob and the student on the apron. I don’t imagine the student would be keen to jump into the C152 after Mary has explained that Bob has been sacked and prohibited from using the C152 and will therefore be in breach of numerous criminal laws if the flight proceeds as planned by Bob.

Of course anyone can ‘go rogue’. Bob could start purporting to deliver flying training the next afternoon, in a different aircraft, after putting up a sign saying “ABC Flying School” at some different airfield to the one at which ABC is based. But in that scenario all of Bob’s sins will be visited on Bob because ABC can legitimately say that none of what Bob did after he was sacked was done with the knowledge or authority of ABC. Even CASA does not expect AOC holders to have procedures in place to deal with the endless things that employees could conceivably do after being sacked.

The scenario I’m talking about is one in which one of APTA’s ‘Alliance’ ‘members’ fails to take action to ‘reign in’ ‘rogue’ personnel and APTA knows about it. The ‘member’ is perfectly happy to continue taking money from students for training them under the authority of APTA’s AOC. Remember: ‘Alliance’ ‘members’ are separate entities from APTA and making their own money from delivering flying training under the authority of APTA’s AOC. APTA’s key personnel are located 100nms away.

All CASA eventually asked for - and should have asked for years earlier - is that APTA put in place legal and effective means of bringing the ‘rogue’ under control in these kinds of circumstances. A bunch of shelf ware and high sounding organisational personnel located hours away ain’t enough to deal with the lack of any direct legal relationship between APTA and the personnel of ‘Alliance’ ‘members’, no legal control over the premises of ‘Alliance’ ‘members’ and no legal control over aircraft of which APTA is not the registered operator.

I’ve posted earlier, a couple of times, the solution to this from a regulatory and practical perspective.