CHAIR: While Senator Xenophon is preparing himself, I was going to ask about the arrangement between us and New Zealand—
Senator XENOPHON: Please do.
CHAIR: and Norfolk Island or wherever it was. But someone has an opening statement.
Ms Staib : Yes, I do. It is very brief.
CHAIR: Righto; go.
Ms Staib : I have just completed just over 12 months in my role as Chief Executive Officer of Airservices Australia. Of course, safety continues to be a No. 1 priority and a key focus of my leadership. Airservices has a key focus on safety training, with disciplined, focused education and training for our people, and it is fundamental to how we maintain our world-leading safety record and reputation.
As you know, a loss of separation is one indicator of safety performance and they, of themselves, do not automatically signify a risk-bearing event. We have a very low rate of loss of separation compared to the rest of the world—substantially lower than Germany, the UK and the USA. But there is never a moment when we are satisfied with a loss of separation, and we are always striving for continuous improvement.
On that note, I just want to discuss one event in particular that received significant media attention. On 20 September of this year, just after noon, a loss of separation incident occurred approximately 20 miles west of Adelaide. Two Qantas aircraft were flying in opposite directions: Qantas flight 581 was westbound at flight level 380, and Qantas flight 576 was eastbound at flight level 390. The incident occurred in en-route airspace and involved one aircraft requesting, and being given clearance, to climb through the altitude of the other aircraft without an appropriate separation standard being in place.
The traffic scenario generated an Airservices short-term conflict alert and also a cockpit-generated traffic conflict alert resolution advisory, or a TCAS, was activated. Our alert looks ahead 60 seconds, while the TCAS looks ahead 30 nautical miles or two minutes at cruise speed for oncoming traffic. The controller took immediate action to descend the climbing aircraft back to a separated altitude. The other aircraft responded to the TCAS resolution by climbing. The estimate at the closest point of proximity was 700 feet vertically and 1.6 nautical miles laterally.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau, Civil Aviation Safety Authority and Qantas airline safety were immediately notified and kept informed. Our internal investigation of this event is well advanced, and ATSB have advised that they will complete their investigation by September 2014.
I think this demonstrates that, when we have humans in a very complex system, on the odd occasion human error could occur.
Senator STERLE: It wouldn't happen in parliament!
CHAIR: Come on.
Senator STERLE: Sorry; I was thinking aloud.
Ms Staib : In response to this incident I have established a task force to undertake a focused review to understand and address the factors which may have contributed to this incident. We are looking at four areas: technology, air space design, training and human performance. The task force is led by an air traffic controller who is reporting directly to me.
Aviation growth continues to be the most significant strategic challenges faced by Airservices Australia. We are now seeing the Sydney-to-Melbourne route listed as the second busiest air corridor in the world in terms of aircraft movements. Sydney to Brisbane has now been listed as the 12th busiest in the world. On 11 October this year we achieved 1,004 movements in Sydney in a day. This was the busiest day since the 2000 Olympics.
I wanted to touch very briefly on the OneSKY Australia project. That is the replacement of the national air traffic control system which we are carrying out jointly with Defence, with Airservices being the lead procurement agency. The tenders have closed and we have commenced evaluation of those tenders.
CHAIR: This was to be a brief opening statement.
Ms Staib : I just want to say one thing about our finance and then I will conclude. I am pleased to report that our revenues for the financial year 2012-13 grew by 6.4 per cent to $955 million. Our operating profit after tax was $63.1 million, and we delivered in the last financial year a dividend to government of $21 million. With that, I will conclude.
CHAIR: That was not too bad. When the alerts went off, did both climb or did one go down and one go up?
Ms Staib : One descended, at the instruction of the air traffic controller; the other ascended in response to the traffic alert.
Senator EDWARDS: Did you say the alert went off in the plane?
Ms Staib : There are two alerts. One goes off in our system, the air services system, in front of the air traffic controller. There is another alert in the—
CHAIR: So the air traffic controller gave permission? It was turbulent weather or something, was it?
Ms Staib : No. Our study showed that the weather was not a factor.
CHAIR: So why did he get permission to go down?
Ms Staib : Can you say that again, please?
CHAIR: The air traffic controller gave one plane permission to go up or go down, which put them into—
Ms Staib : What happened was that the pilot requested to ascend.
CHAIR: For any good reason?
Ms Staib : I do not know.
CHAIR: I have one final question. Was the guy who was doing the piloting in the right seat or the left seat?
Ms Staib : I do not know.
CHAIR: Those are all the things you will find out, though?
Mr Hood : If I could answer, the ATSB is investigating this particular incident. So all of those factors in relation to what happened in the cockpit will come out in that. 