Reece

Are the majors fairing any better? Certainly, the performance of Ansett, TAA, Qantas and the dozens of smaller third-level carriers in recent years is well appreciated. What has not surfaced is the gross effects that an antiquated ATC system is having on day to day operations of our domestic trunk operators. TAA quote that ATC delays alone in the twelve-month period ending in March this year resulted in a loss of $5. 8 million on operations. This does not reflect the loss of productivity on equipment and crews as aircraft seem to circle as standard peak hour procedure over Sydney’s famed Bindook beacon. If you have ever operated out of JFK, Chicago’s O’Hare, Heathrow or Honolulu then you wonder why our own ATC cannot cope. On this tack, the Department IS installing new equipment to speed operations, however it is being installed in what essentially amounts to an alphabetical order rather than one of preference as Brisbane and Adelaide receive their new systems years before Sydney.

Airports are also costing us an arm and a leg. Virtually all concerned in the aviation decision-making process, including the Bureau of Transport Economics and the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works, agreed that Brisbane does not need its new facilities till at least 1996. Yet this massive $300 million project is preferred for upgrading ports such as Alice Springs, Rockhampton, Kalgoorlie, and Mackay. Similarly, Queensland now has three international gateways in a State that even locals privately admit requires two at the most. Just as surely as Queensland has too many international ports, Sydney stumbles on through what will become yet another airport controversy. If only the politicians and the bureaucrats could see that by upgrading ATC facilities and the return to a second parallel runway at Mascot they would greatly speed movements and reduce overall noise. Instead, we have the promise of a second major airport which will require an expense of hundreds of millions of dollars (which will ultimately be entirely borne by either the airlines OR the taxpayer in turn) to simply duplicate an entirely suitable existing facility which also happens to provide employment for several thousand local people.

Sydney is perhaps the benchmark of what is wrong with the entire system. That Ansett cannot operate its ultra-quiet 767s and TAA its A300s into Sydney during curfew hours is ludicrous considering the noise footprint generated by these highly economical aircraft. It is a decision based purely on political will, not reality, or more importantly any degree of intelligence, and again we pay the penalty.

TAA, Ansett and Qantas cannot understand why, when they have reduced their staff levels significantly to increase efficiency the DofA has actually increased their overall staffing by nearly 20% in the past four years despite a major consolidation to Canberra in an effort to rationalise operations. Australia now has roughly two DofA employees for every aircraft on the register, as compared to 4. 5 aircraft per FAA employee in the USA. The airlines are also reluctant to face another ‘user pays’ price hike when much of the DofA equipment is so inefficient and outdated. This latter point involves our standards of equipment for ATC, most of which dates back to the fifties in design, to the all-important meteorology services (which its own Minister recently described as archaic and a potential threat to air safety), to vastly outdated and overly manual forms of data collection, processing and distribution that would be totally unacceptable to private enterprise where the only dollar you get to spend is the dollar you earn.

Through all this the airlines are happy to see themselves being brought more into the consultative stages. The differences today with the Department under the helm of Kim Beazley is a far cry from those days of the combined horrors of Transport and aviation. It is indeed good to see a Minister who is genuinely interested in aviation and actively seeking a greater, and more open, dialogue with those who are the backbone of aviation in Australia.

For the viable future of our airline environment let’s all hope that their voices are at long last heeded.

The Price of Inflation

Four years of inflation have taken their toll at Australian Aviation, consequently forcing us to increase our cover price from the next issue. The rise of forty cents about a third of the CPI increase over the past four years, when we had our last increase, so as you can see, all efforts have been made to contain cost increases as much as possible. However, there is no reason you need pay the increase as mail subscribers can still save more than ever, at our old rates. In fact our subscription rates have remained intact since they commenced in 1979 to ensure that you really DO save money by subscribing direct. Check out our special money-saving offer attached to this issue’s centerspread; you won’t regret it.