Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation
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Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation
When the press want an expert quote about aviation they inevitably head to CAPA and we hear from Peter Harbison or one of his sidekicks. I don't have a problem with this but I sometimes wonder if CAPA is completely objective or is promulgating the views of one or some of its clients.
The CAPA website is very coy about their clients. It only talks about the type of work CAPA does and even then much of the information is way out-of-date so it is hard to exactly gauge who their clients are but presumably they are airlines and airports and CAPA is engaged to perform consultancies and where necessary lobby governments so the clients aims can be achieved.
Because we don't know who the clients are, we don't know the spin CAPA are trying to put when it gives an "expert" opinion to the press. It would surely be appropriate that where CAPA has a potential conflict of interest it disclose this, otherwise it should just be treated as a lobbyist and any opinions its gives treated as "spin."
The CAPA website is very coy about their clients. It only talks about the type of work CAPA does and even then much of the information is way out-of-date so it is hard to exactly gauge who their clients are but presumably they are airlines and airports and CAPA is engaged to perform consultancies and where necessary lobby governments so the clients aims can be achieved.
Because we don't know who the clients are, we don't know the spin CAPA are trying to put when it gives an "expert" opinion to the press. It would surely be appropriate that where CAPA has a potential conflict of interest it disclose this, otherwise it should just be treated as a lobbyist and any opinions its gives treated as "spin."
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Would also be interesting to see if one prominent commentator on Channel 9 and The Australian has any stock or connections to a large publicly listed airline in Australia. <img src="confused.gif" border="0">
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It just goes to show how uninformed the media is if they rely on all their aviation knowledge from the CAPA. Who the hell is Peter Harbinson and what has been his involvment in Australian aviation? It seems that most of his expert opinion comes from PPrune anyway. As an aside I was listening to the SMH aviation correspondent on the radio the other day who admitted that his first involvment with aviation was the Easter grounding of the Ansett 767's and before that he had been a crime reporter!
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This is an interesting subject. I have been watching with interest the "predictions" of CAPA for some time. One was that EVA would not exist in its present form in the year 2000. This prediction was made about 1996/7. As far as I know EVA is doing fine. Another hackneyed commentator from the '70's who always seems to pass on information way past its use by date is Les Bloxham from the Christchurch Press. Why do these people get the press they do?
