People,
Don’t blame CASA for this one, the delays are not of their making. All that has happened is that they have been deluged with applications as a result of a role forced on them.
There are literally dozens of ASIC card issuers, seems to me that because of problems not anything to do with CASA ( many of us know of some “interesting” “policies” being imposed by individual issuers) “somebody” decided very late in the day to tell CASA that they, CASA, were going to be added to the ranks of ASIC issuers, RFN.
CASA rightly cops a lot of flack for a lot of things, but it seems to me that in this case, they have got their act together un-characteristically quickly. That the sheer volume of ASICs required by the deadline is a logistics nightmare is not a nightmare of CASA’s making.
If you want to point fingers and throw stones, this time you should look elsewhere.
The DOTARS info. service can point you to other sources for an ASIC, as professional pilots you all did all you could, knowing a long time ago the 31/12 deadline because you all keep up with the regulations, including ANRs, (not just CARs etc) didn’t you !!
At the risk of advertising, “AO can’t be mentioned here” and Aviation ID Australia at Merimbula can be used, and both also have been doing a good job minimizing the problems for flying visitors to Australia.
By May 06, or thereabouts, expect to have a combined ASIC/License option, (yep!, you will be able to file the 6” by 4” folder under “pommie innovations”) , this was announced by CASA last May.
Tootle pip !!