NZ aviation report - Jan to Mar 2005
New Zealand Report Card – Jan to Mar ‘05
(From CAA NZ website)
Ten year overview.
For all aircraft types, hours flown in this quarter was 248,000 whereas a decade ago the figure was 179,000. Aircraft on the register have increased from 3,3378 to 3,828. Private pilots have remained static at 3,600. Commercial licences are now 3,484 an increase of only 200. All ATPL licence holder have grown by only 250 to 1,750. Engineers have moved from 1,800 to just over 2,000.
Overall the helicopter segment is showing continued strong growth measured by CAA NZ at 11.7% per year. This is above the Australian figure of about 8% per year. In both countries, aeroplanes below 5,670 kg are losing ground, despite the increase in airline activity.
Accidents rate down.
The CAA NZ quarterly safety summary ending 31 Mar ’05 shows the overall the accident rate for GA is currently below the CAA NZ target at 7/100,000 flying hours.
Helicopters had only three accidents in the quarter, compared to seven last year, an encouraging trend.
More helicopters.
Helicopters increased from 541 to 604 over the year, an increase of 11.6%. The register gained another 63 helicopters, and although the helicopter rate of increase has slowed over the Christmas/New Year period, the trend is still very positive.
Aeroplanes mixed bag.
All categories flew 12% more hours than last year. However, the smaller the aeroplane the worse business appeared to be. Light aeroplanes are following the Australian trend of an almost stagnate growth rate of 1.7%.
It can be said the helicopter fleet is growing six times faster than GA aeroplane fleet.
Social costs.
An interesting NZ study is the social cost of accidents. Over the past decade 102 aircraft have been destroyed, 213 people killed and 122 suffered serious injuries. A total cost of $677 million or $67.7m a year. The life of a person is valued at $2.842 million.
95% of losses are from GA.
The below 5,670 kg aeroplanes, helicopters and sport groups cause 95% of the accidents and associated costs to the community. Helicopters cause losses of about $18 million per year averaged over ten years. That is $1.5 million each month.
There is an old saying: “If you think safety education is expensive, try having an accident.”
It is assumed that the Australian costs would be higher as the NZ people are not able to sue for compensation, as Australians and Americans do automatically.
Commercial operators.
The accident trend is below the CAA NZ target set some time ago. This is good news for the insurance companies. The current rate is about 3/100,000 hours.
Aerial work.
The NZ rate is about 11/100,000 hours, still slightly below the target for this group. It is just below the equivalent Australian rate. Combined, the NZ rates are now below the Australian rates. However, they are still higher than the USA. (Congratulations to the NZ community.)
Private owners.
Although they will protest their innocence, the private owners are not doing so well and are above the target set by the CAA NZ. The current rate is 25/100,000 flying hours. The past quarter has shown an improvement, so fingers crossed.
The private loss rate in NZ is similar to the Australian rate.
Mechanical defects.
These are hard to define. The past year has shown a major decrease in major defects in the helicopter fleet, despite flying more hours.
Thought I would pass these facts onto to this thread while I was drafting an article for a magazine. It sort of helps with the debate, and may be of interest to the professional aviation community.
As an aside, the reason for the high loss rates amongst private owners, a world wide problem (both FW and RW) is simply: low hours, low rate of flying and lack of currency and check rides.
As the machines get faster and more technobabble, the rates go up!
What can we do?