Mr. Grayling
Firstly thank you for taking the time to post here to address our concerns. I am sure that even the most skeptical amongst us here would thank you for this.
All of us in the aviation industry, whether private pilots, students or professionals, do take safety and security seriously, and we fully appreciate and understand the problems that exist today.
That said, I would like to point out a number of concerns that currently are either failing to be addressed, or are being simply ignored altogether. I would ask you to please read the points I am going to make and I would appreciate comment.
Firstly, perhaps the reason for the somewhat hostile attitude here is because for a long number of years now, most especially recently, aviation has been regulated by people who have very little (or, in many cases, none at all) knowledge and understanding of aviation itself and the practicalities involved with aviation. The probelm is that decisions are being made with respect to aviation regulation, safety and security by people who have little or no knowledge of what they are dealing with. There is no consultation, only sudden releases saying that "this is what is going to happen, on this date"; no consultation with pilots, engineers, controllers etc., we are merely told that things are happening "this" way, and if we don't like it then tough. The end result is always the same; we are the ones then left to pick up the pieces with the resulting uneducated, disorgnised mess that follows. It costs time, money, and in the end, jobs.
In the past decisions with respect to such matters were made by our own Civil Aviation Authority, however most regulatory matters are now dealt with centrally in Europe by EASA, which most of us get the impression do not have a clue at all about what they are attempting to regulate. The whole situation is a complete mess and yet again we shall suffer from it; time, money and jobs.
Secondly, whilst we agree with you that we should be careful with respect to security issues, again I must urge caution and restraint, because yet again the people who are trusted with the task of making decisions have very little understanding of what they are attempting to regulate. In the case of security this is usually left to the Government, however we only need to see the completely OTT security arrangements at major UK airports to see the effect this has had. Do we really want to see small grass airfields, who up until now have existed quite happily and without any problems, have similar security forced upon them? Will we need full-time security jobsworths and footwear searches for weekend flyers going for an hour-long flight in the local area in a Cessna? Again regulatory authorities seemingly have no understanding of the practicalities involved.
Thirdly, as a final point, the aviation industry is already being put through the wringer on a scale never seen before, save for perhaps the aftermath of 9/11. The recent economical problems combined with high fuel prices, "Green" taxation, Government apathy towards the industry, in addition to the above problems I have listed above of interfering, distrusted, uneducated authorities, are combining to cause much damage to a sucessful and vital industry which employs a lot of people, makes a lot of money for the UK, and serves the vital task of the only high-speed, high-capacity method of transport. Many, many people - some on this very forum - have lost their jobs (and hence throwing their lives into chaos) recently due to the above factors. Some like myself are also trying to break into the industry by turning a rewarding, enjoyable, harmless hobby into a rewarding, important and enjoyable career in order to better ourselves.
The bottom line is, until the Government - both present and future - begins to understand and then address these problems by understanding what it is trying to regulate and entrusting decision-making to the hands of people involved in the industry who understand its workings and practicalities, more mass unemployment will follow, resulting in the destruction of a lucrative industry and severely damaging the UK's ability to conduct business internationally because of the loss of a vital transport system.
The implications run much further than being a mere inconvenience to weekend flyers, it causes damage to the whole industry.
Yours sincerely,
Captain Smithy
A humble young PPL who spends his meagre wages on a harmless hobby he enjoys at the weekends/days off and merely asks for others to understand and respect that and to avoid interfering with it - as I do with others.