It is now the morning of Thursday 15 November, 9.08 am Sydney time. That is, less than one hour before the deadline my solicitor has given Airservices Australia. So far, there has not been any communication from Airservices in relation to my letter of 12 November 2007 (see
here).
Pinky the pilot, you mention public pressure by contacting people like The 7.30 Report. Unfortunately I think everyone knows that Airservices will simply ignore anything like this – they have in the past. They have set themselves on a path which they will stick to as far as they can.
I hope it will be quite different when we get to the Federal Court. When the Judge in the Court hears the facts – especially in relation to the lack of consultation and the lack of any real safety case, that a proper decision will be made.
I have a feeling that the Chief Executive and Board of Airservices do not really understand what they are doing. I don’t believe they thought that the proposal to place Flightwatch on ATC frequencies actually meant the complete close down of an independent VHF Flightwatch system. If you look at the documents which were sent out, anyone could easily be misled.
This is where we will see if there is any real leadership in the place. That is, a real leader will change the course and keep the independent Flightwatch while a truly honest safety case and truly honest consultation takes place. Here’s hoping.
By the way, the Airservices press release states that they advised RAPAC of the changes in August 2007. I have spoken to the convenor of the NSW RAPAC, who was at a complete loss to understand that there had been any proposal to close down an independent Flightwatch. He said that Airservices did not even send a representative to the last RAPAC meeting, and he had complained to them about this.
Does anyone have a copy of the Airservices advice which was sent to RAPAC in August 2007 (as per the Airservices media release - see
here) in relation to the changed Flightwatch frequencies? Can they please post it on this website?
I understand that it wasn’t a true consultative paper, it was basically a paper announcing what was happening.