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Caa Announces Updated Charging Policy:

On April 12 the CAA announced that its charges to industry would fall by 3% in real terms.

At the same time the Authority also verified that ultimately the cost of providing safety regulatory services would be fully bome by industry. In this area the cost recovery target for 1988/89 is $4. 5m from identified costs of about $12. 5m. The CAA expects to raise at least $500m from its established aviation charges though a 3% reduction in charges to airlines via techno- logy and efficiency improvements will save the airlines an expected $25m over the two year period ending June 1990.

AA Comment: Continued efficiency gains with the CAA are certainly to be applauded despite the fact that they are difficult to visualise in practical terms for most of us within the industry. It simply nowadays means that we all pay for services which

Stop Press

Welcome to our new STOP PRESS feature. Just as the name implies this new section of the magazine will be able to report on news items that in the past we have had to pass over due to our copy deadlines being already exceeded when the event occurred.

Technological improvements which we are introducing later in the year will also offer us even greater opportunities via our STOP PRESS feature, effectively offering up to ten days extra news gathering capability than was previously the case. We hope that this new feature will be able to provide you, our valued reader, with an even better overall news service than was previously available.

once were either substantially cheaper (refer p. 11 Mar 89 AA) or were not charged for at all.

The bottom line though, as always, is that while cost recovery is accepted by everybody within industry, it is time the government stopped shifting the goal posts in terms of how much the industry must pay to fund both the CAA and the FAC. To pay for services provided, where they are needed, is argued against by virtually no one within industry. However, what has occurred these past three years is that a number of significant sources of aviation funding have been deliberately removed while additional and totally unjustified costs have been introduced for which industry must now pay.

For instance, when the $20 departure tax was dropped in May last year, it meant a shortfall of an expected $80m to this year’s aviation budget. Translated, this means that you and I now have to pay the differ- ence while the proceeds of the new $10 departure tax go straight into consolidated revenue.

The other money grab was that when the FAC and CAA were established as statutory authorities, they were (unlike a Commonwealth Department) forced to pay a wide range of taxes and dues that they were not formerly required to. For the CAA this means an extra $20m to $25m extra revenue must be generated (by their estimates) this year alone while the total between the CAA and FAC is expected to exceed $30m by next financial year.

This money has now to be taken from industry to pay a government entity which then remits those extra funds direct to the government itself. If ‘covert theft’ was ever an applicable description of this confidence trick upon aviation, then this would be its finest application. It’s about time that avia- tion paid for only the services it wants, requires and receives rather than being a mere whipping boy for an ever more greedy treasury. We will be investigating this aspect of cost recovery and aviation charg- ing in the next edition of AA – don’t miss it.

United Flies Into Turbulence:

If luck, either good or bad, comes in a run, then United Airlines, the free world’s second largest airline, has certainly had its fair share in recent months.

Bad times began for United on the 24th February when a forward cargo door tore off a Sydney bound 747 95kms south of Honolulu. In a superb feat of airmanship the Captain and crew recovered what was an extremely critical situation to get the stricken airliner safely back to Honolulu. In the ensuing structural failure of the sidewall of the business class section, nine people were sucked to their death.

Events continued to deteriorate for the airline when just over a month later on the 25th March another United 747 lost a fibreglass wing fairing near Manilla. Two days later another United 747 had to shut down an engine outbound from Auckland while on the 8th of April a United 747SP made an unusually heavy landing at Sydney’s Kingsford Smith Airport. The resultant impact forced part of the undercarriage to fracture and penetrate the upper wing surface of the Boeing. Corrosion and suspected crosswind gusts contributed to the failure which structurally was similar to an undercarriage fatigue problem discovered in 1986 at KSA on a United 747SP.

United of course was not the only airline suffering problems with parts departing their aircraft in flight during the period. On the 12th April a chartered British Airways Concorde lost a major portion of its upper vertical stabiliser and rudder whilst on a flight from Christchurch to Sydney. The section broke off at 40,000ft and apart from a minor initial vibration was not noticed by the crew till ATC informed them of the failure following a routine landing.

Fac Offering Credit Facility for Gait Charges:

The Federal Airports Corporation has arranged a line of credit with its bankers at standard bank rates for operators wishing to bulk purchase the new General Aviation Infrastructure Tariff (GAIT) stickers.

Minimum borrowing is set at $5,000 to approved clients. Initial industry reaction was one of cynicism as it was doubtful that the savings to be enjoyed by bulk purchase would offset the high bank rates coupled with the normal loss of dollar value owing to a worsening inflation rate.

FAC airports covered by GAIT are Canberra, Darwin, Alice Springs, Essendon, Launceston, Tennant Creek, Mt. Isa, Townsville, Coolangatta, Banks town, Hoxton Park, Camden, Moorabbin, Archerfield, Parafield, Jandakot and Cambridge. While GAIT will apply directly to about 1,800 aircraft parked on the 14 relevant airfields, any of the 7,000+ aircraft on the Australian register using an FAC airport on a casual basis would also pay according to the GAIT formula (full details of GAIT were printed on p. 10 of our last issue). The FAC, which controls 26 airports throughout Australia, claims that it loses $12m a year from its GA operations, of which GAIT would help recover around $2m.

Dick Smith Addresses Moorabbin Airport Tenants Group:

Civil Aviation Authority board member, Dick Smith addressed the Moor- abbin Airport Tenants Group on April 6.

Purpose of the meeting was to gain first-hand a better understanding of the day-to-day problems being encountered between GA and the CAA. Discussion largely centred on the safety regulatory side of the CAA rather than on the airways side. He explained the appointment of Allan Heggen as the new Group GM of the recently established Safety Regulation division and his desire to achieve change. A major point was the explanation of the committee established to review the ANO’s and ANR’s (refer Recce) with the intent of removing those regulations that are not safety/cost justified.

Dick suggested that it would help greatly to initiate change if those in GA wrote directly to Mr I Bidmeade of the Air Safety Regulation Review Task Force at the CAA, GPO Box 367, Canberra, ACT 2601 stating which regulations or requirements add costs but don’t give a commensurate increase in safety. On certification he advised that, in light of the above, the CAA are going to review the possibility of accepting overseas ColA and certification standards.

Ansett Threatens to Withdraw From New Zealand:

Sir Perter Abeles stunned the aviation world during early April with his threat to close down the struggling Ansett New Zealand operation.

Reason for the threatened closure revolved around the New Zealand government’s final approval of the sale of Air New Zealand to a consortium which includes Qantas as a major secondary shareholder. Previously Ansett NZ received the bulk of Qantas within New Zealand whereas now Ansett feels that most of this potentially large domestic traffic base will funnel across to rival Air New Zealand domestic services.

Ansett has invested more than $A350m in its NZ operation which is reportedly still losing around $1m a month. Ironically Ansett now finds itself in the same position any new entrant airline will when Australia deregulates its domestic trunk system in November next year. A small and previously unknown operator flying head to head with an established large carrier is an almost guaranteed recipe for fiscal disaster.

Despite having free access to any route it chooses, Ansett New Zealand now finds itself in a similar position to that of East-West Airlines locally prior to its takeover by Ansett/TNT in 1987. What Ansett would like though is to be able to fly transtasmnan services and link the domestic networks of both countries. Many sources within Canberra feel that if the new Australian domestic entrants (Capital and Compass) do not succeed, then the way will be left open for Air New Zealand to offer domestic services within Australia, thereby providing a realistic challenger to the might of Ansett and Australian. In this scenario Ansett is naturally hoping to be granted trans-Tasman rights, probably along with Australian, which is something that it has been working towards for many years. A jointly deregulated aviation market via CER guidelines is considered more than just a pipedream and something that could well occur before the mid nineties.

Public Liability Bill Flies Again:

Senators Dan Glickman and Nancy Landon Kassebaum are resubmitting their challenge to the present US public liability bill as applied to GA aircraft.

This is their third attempt to win approval for their Bill in the US Senate and comes up once more against the powerful Association of Trial Lawyers of America, a long time foe of any bill limiting public liability. In the USA lawyers in such cases usually work on commission with no fees being paid by their clients if they should lose. The lawyers virtually scalp hunt trade and work on a commission basis only.

The new Bill serves principally to limit liability in terms of the age of the aircraft and places some accountability upon those who sue for extremely large sums without sufficient recourse to either technical or moral justification.

Ansett to Cease Vanuatu Operation:

Ansett will cease its weekly Boe- ing 727 return service between Australia and Port Vila, Vanuatu, after May 28, 1989. The Ansett service has operated Sydney! Brisbane/Port Vila return on Sundays.

The airline has operated the service on behalf of Qantas since 1983 but will not be seeking to renew the Agreement with Qantas when it expires at the end of May.

Ansett said the service had not been economically viable for some time. Reasons included the overall number of airline services on the route, cyclone dam- age to tourism infrastructure in 1988 and recent political instability in Vanuatu. Meanwhile, Air Vanuatu has been reformed by the Vanuatu Government with the purchase of an Australian Airlines 727-200. The aircraft will carry full Air Vanuatu livery and flight crew with servicing being undertaken in Australia by Australian Airlines. When not plying Air Vanuatu routes, the aircraft will be leased back to Australian to support its regional operations in a similar fashion to the arrangement between Air Polynesia and Ansett with their 727.

Caa to Invest in Centralised Briefing System:

The Civil Aviation Authority is to install a National Aeronautical Information Processing System (NAIPS) to improve its service to pilots at a cost of $13. 4 million.

NAIPS will be the most comprehensive aviation briefing system of its type in the world. It will increase efficiency by automating the collection of aviation information, including Notices to Airmen (NOTAMS) and meteorological information. In addition NAIPS will include provision to store this information in a central database and to make it available to pilots in the form of specific preflight briefing bulletins, tailored to the particular needs of each individual flight.

NAIPS will also assist pilots in the preparation and submission of flight plans. Pilot access to the NAIPS briefing and flight planning services will include the following:

• continued face-to-face briefing services in CAA briefing offices at capital city primary and secondary airports (including Cairns):

•  pilot self-briefing terminals located at the above briefing offices and at 26 regional aerodromes throughout Australia;

•  by telephone from anywhere in Australia to one of two Centralised Briefing Units (CBUS) at Brisbane and Melbourne-this service will include the automatic presentation of information using synthesised voice system; by the use of personal computers linked directly or by way of a dial up modem to the NAIP system – this service will be available to airline offices, charter companies, aero clubs and pilots using home computers. Computers at the two CBUS will hold all information required by the system, feeding computer terminals at the CBUS and at the manned briefing offices, the remote self-briefing terminals and any linked corporate or personal computers.