Merged: New CASA Charges For Pilots
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: Great Southern Land
Age: 57
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Re: Merged: New CASA Charges For Pilots
Is this deliberate? The whole antipathy towards GA business, I mean? If enough people give up flying in disgust, the developers and fund managers who now own the GAAP airports (and who fund the major political parties so generously) can just shut those airports down and build McMansions, mega malls, and industrial parks.
Think of the savings for CASA, too! No more GA. The airlines will be stoked - every former aircraft owner who can no longer fly his 182 or Bonanza to Queensland will have to slum it with the riff raff in J* and Virgin - SHOW ME THE MONEY PLEASE!
Pollies will love it .... they can take credit for ridding the skies of those horrible unsafe little Cessna Cherokees which are always plummetting in loop the loop death spirals onto child care centres.
The upcoming LAME shortage won't matter.... there won't be an industry anyway!!!!! Yeehaa! We're all WINNERS!
And what of remote rural communities? Loss of a vital air service? Who cares!!?!! Put on a bus once a month ... Bushy & his mates can take that to the big smoke for their oncologist appointment or whatever - they don't REALLY need to fly, do they?
We'll all be winners.
Think of the savings for CASA, too! No more GA. The airlines will be stoked - every former aircraft owner who can no longer fly his 182 or Bonanza to Queensland will have to slum it with the riff raff in J* and Virgin - SHOW ME THE MONEY PLEASE!
Pollies will love it .... they can take credit for ridding the skies of those horrible unsafe little Cessna Cherokees which are always plummetting in loop the loop death spirals onto child care centres.
The upcoming LAME shortage won't matter.... there won't be an industry anyway!!!!! Yeehaa! We're all WINNERS!
And what of remote rural communities? Loss of a vital air service? Who cares!!?!! Put on a bus once a month ... Bushy & his mates can take that to the big smoke for their oncologist appointment or whatever - they don't REALLY need to fly, do they?
We'll all be winners.
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: sydney
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$130 Medicals?????
Private pilots slam CASA fee to log medical
Steve Creedy, Aviation writer
January 13, 2006
PRIVATE aircraft owners and pilots have attacked a move by the aviation regulator to charge $130 to log medical information as an attempt to "bleed dollars from a captive market".
Claiming general aviation is suffering from "regulatory overload", the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association has written to the Civil Aviation Safety Authority chief Bruce Byron and Transport Minister Warren Truss calling for the agency's cost recovery plans to be put on hold and for the medical fee to be removed.
AOPA vice-president Andrew Kerans said the lobby group was fighting the medical issue as the most obvious of several problems with CASA's proposals.
"You go to a doctor to get a medical and you have to pay for that and, of course, it's not on Medicare because it's seen as a private thing," Mr Kerans said.
"But now what you have to do is also pay CASA to accept that medical. In other words, the doctor emails the medical into CASA and they charge us $130 just to put it on their system."
Mr Kerans said AOPA understood the concept of cost recovery but believed the industry should not be held captive to a regulator that could set its own fees.
He said instructors taking biannual flight reviews were allowed to simply stamp pilots' log books and designated aviation medical examiners should be trusted to do the same.
He said CASA should only be involved where there was a medical problems. "And that's the big message: we want CASA to start trusting the industry and to stop setting up quasi-business monopolies," he said.
"Another interesting issue is with exams ... they've set up a monopoly so now you have to pay CASA to mark the exam and you have to pay ASL (Aviation Services Limited, the contractor) to conduct the exam.
"AOPA has offered to run the exams, where we would do it for free for members, but they don't want to do that because they've set up a monopoly with ASL."
CASA spokesman Peter Gibson said the $130 represented an average cost that was considered fairer than charging on an hourly basis.
"While it is true most medicals are a routine exercise, some take days, and sometimes weeks, to resolve.
"If we had hourly fees, some people would pay thousands."
But Mr Kerans said CASA needed to withdraw the cost recovery fees until it sat down and determined what it should be doing, what could be outsourced and where industry could self-regulate.
"We actually don't understand why CASA pays as much attention as it does to Vee-Dubs with wings and the very small amount of attention they seem to pay to airlines and the fare-paying passenger," he said.
Mr Truss said he believed needed changes were happening at CASA. "Bruce (Byron) is seeking to drive those and I'm encouraging him to get on with the job."
Steve Creedy, Aviation writer
January 13, 2006
PRIVATE aircraft owners and pilots have attacked a move by the aviation regulator to charge $130 to log medical information as an attempt to "bleed dollars from a captive market".
Claiming general aviation is suffering from "regulatory overload", the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association has written to the Civil Aviation Safety Authority chief Bruce Byron and Transport Minister Warren Truss calling for the agency's cost recovery plans to be put on hold and for the medical fee to be removed.
AOPA vice-president Andrew Kerans said the lobby group was fighting the medical issue as the most obvious of several problems with CASA's proposals.
"You go to a doctor to get a medical and you have to pay for that and, of course, it's not on Medicare because it's seen as a private thing," Mr Kerans said.
"But now what you have to do is also pay CASA to accept that medical. In other words, the doctor emails the medical into CASA and they charge us $130 just to put it on their system."
Mr Kerans said AOPA understood the concept of cost recovery but believed the industry should not be held captive to a regulator that could set its own fees.
He said instructors taking biannual flight reviews were allowed to simply stamp pilots' log books and designated aviation medical examiners should be trusted to do the same.
He said CASA should only be involved where there was a medical problems. "And that's the big message: we want CASA to start trusting the industry and to stop setting up quasi-business monopolies," he said.
"Another interesting issue is with exams ... they've set up a monopoly so now you have to pay CASA to mark the exam and you have to pay ASL (Aviation Services Limited, the contractor) to conduct the exam.
"AOPA has offered to run the exams, where we would do it for free for members, but they don't want to do that because they've set up a monopoly with ASL."
CASA spokesman Peter Gibson said the $130 represented an average cost that was considered fairer than charging on an hourly basis.
"While it is true most medicals are a routine exercise, some take days, and sometimes weeks, to resolve.
"If we had hourly fees, some people would pay thousands."
But Mr Kerans said CASA needed to withdraw the cost recovery fees until it sat down and determined what it should be doing, what could be outsourced and where industry could self-regulate.
"We actually don't understand why CASA pays as much attention as it does to Vee-Dubs with wings and the very small amount of attention they seem to pay to airlines and the fare-paying passenger," he said.
Mr Truss said he believed needed changes were happening at CASA. "Bruce (Byron) is seeking to drive those and I'm encouraging him to get on with the job."
